ANTITRUST ALERT
ANTITRUST ALERT
A Global Resource for Compliance Officers & Legal Advisors
ANTITRUST ALERT
A Global Resource for Compliance Officers & Legal Advisors
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THE LATEST: FTC Announces New Model Timing Agreement for Merger Investigations

by | Aug 9, 2018 | ,

WHAT HAPPENED:
  • On August 7, the FTC published a new Model Timing Agreement. Timing agreements are agreements between FTC staff and merging parties that outline the FTC’s expected timing for various events in order for it to conduct an orderly investigation during a Second Request.
  • The FTC expects the Model Timing Agreement to be used as drafted (or in a similar form) for all transactions that receive a Second Request. The FTC has used timing agreements frequently in the past, as has the DOJ, but the FTC has now published a model, which means this is likely to become the standard practice moving forward.
  • Parties are not required to enter into a timing agreement. However, in practicality, if parties do not agree to the timing agreement, the agency will proceed as if it must be in court to block the deal within 30 days of compliance. Therefore, it will prepare for litigation and will not consider settlement options or engage with the parties on the issues in the same way it would if the agency had more time under a timing agreement.
  • Some highlights of the new Model Timing Agreement are provided below (Note: All days listed refer to calendar days):
    • Parties must provide 30 days’ notice before certifying substantial compliance, and such notice cannot be provided until at least 10 days after signing the timing agreement.
    • Parties cannot close a proposed transaction until a specified time period after substantial compliance with the Second Request. The model indicates this will be 60 days in less complex matters or 90 days in more complex matters, but could be longer than 90 days in “matters involving particularly complicated industries.”
    • Parties must provide 30 days’ notice before consummating the proposed transaction and cannot provide notice more than 40 days before the date on which they have a good faith basis to believe they will have cleared other closing conditions and will be able to complete the transaction, absent an FTC action to block the transaction.
    • The agreement includes a stipulated Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) which will be entered in the event of a challenge. The TRO prevents the parties from consummating the transaction until after five days following a ruling on a motion for preliminary injunction.
    • The timing agreement contains other timing-related provisions such as for document productions and investigational hearings as part of the FTC’s investigation.
WHAT THIS MEANS:
  • Though the Model Timing Agreement does not affect the statutory expiration of the HSR waiting period, it commits the parties not to consummate the transaction for a much longer period and, therefore, effectively extends the waiting period far longer than the 30 days specified under the HSR Act.
  • The 40-day notice required before the closing date means that if there is another condition in the way of closing, such as an ongoing investigation before the European Commission or in China, the parties cannot provide their notice of the anticipated closing date to the FTC. The FTC will [...]

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Antitrust M&A Snapshot

by , and | Aug 6, 2018 | , , , , ,

United States: April – June 2018 Update

The second quarter of 2018 ushered in a trial defeat for the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the beginning of a new era at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In June, Judge Richard J. Leon of the US District Court for the District of Columbia denied the DOJ’s requested injunction of the AT&T/Time Warner acquisition. The case marked the first litigated vertical challenge by the Antitrust Division in nearly 40 years. DOJ filed a notice of appeal of the district court’s decision. At the FTC, four new commissioners were sworn in in May, with a fifth to join upon the approval of current commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen to the US Court of Federal Claims. With the transition nearly complete, new FTC Chairman Joseph Simons announced plans to re-examine and modernize the FTC’s approach to competition and consumer protection laws, possibly charting a new course for FTC antitrust enforcement.

EU: April – June 2018 Update

In this quarter, we saw two significant developments concerning the issue of gun-jumping. First, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) clarified the scope of the gun-jumping prohibition, ruling that a gun-jumping act can only be regarded as the implementation of a merger if it contributes to a change in control over the target. Second, the European Commission (EC) imposed a €124.5 million fine on Altice for having breached the notification and the standstill obligations enshrined in the EUMR by gun-jumping. The EC also issued two clearance decisions following Phase II investigations in the area of information service activities and the manufacture of basic metals. (more…)



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THE LATEST: FTC Settles Civil Complaint for Wage-Fixing

by | Aug 2, 2018 | ,

A recent settlement shows that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will use its enforcement authority to target employer collusion in the labor market.

WHAT HAPPENED
  • The FTC brought a complaint against a medical staffing agency, Your Therapy Source, LLC, and the owner of a competing staffing agency, Integrity Home Therapy, for allegedly agreeing to reduce the rates they would pay to their staff. Simultaneously, the FTC settled the case with a consent order that forbids the parties from any future attempt to exchange pay information or to agree on the wages to be paid to their staffs.
  • This was the first FTC wage-fixing enforcement action since the FTC and US Department of Justice (DOJ) issued their joint Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals in October 2016. That guidance stated that naked wage-fixing and no-poach agreements—e.g., agreements separate from or not reasonably necessary to a larger legitimate collaboration between the employers—are per se illegal under the Sherman Act.
  • The respondents in the Your Therapy Source case are staffing agencies that allegedly provided therapists such as physical therapists, speech therapists and occupational therapists to home health agencies on a contract basis. The respondents were responsible for recruiting the therapists and paying them a “pay rate” per visit or per patient.
  • According to the complaint, the alleged unlawful agreement began when one home health agency unilaterally notified Integrity that it was going to reduce the “bill rates” that it paid Integrity for its therapists, thus cutting into Integrity’s profit margins. Integrity’s owner then reached out through one of his therapists to the owner of Your Therapy Source and the two exchanged information about their respective rates paid to therapists. The two firms then reached an agreement via text message to reduce the rates they paid therapists.
  • Once the respondents had reached the agreement to reduce therapists’ pay, Integrity’s owner allegedly reached out via text to four other competing therapy-staffing agencies to solicit their participation in the agreement.
  • The FTC’s complaint alleged that this conduct violated Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair and deceptive acts and practices.
WHAT THIS MEANS
  • Wage-fixing cases have been notable in the health care industry, with prior DOJ enforcement against a hospital buying group and several class actions against health care providers in the 2000s that alleged the fixing of nurses’ pay.
  • Companies should strictly avoid colluding with other firms on wages, salaries, fringe benefits or other remuneration paid to workers. Companies should also exercise extreme caution in information exchanges regarding wages and benefits, which can lead to improper agreements or result in independent antitrust liability if not properly supervised.
  • Firms should be mindful of the DOJ/FTC’s joint guidance on information sharing in the health care industry (see link at p. 50), which also provides a useful template for how the US antitrust agencies will analyze information sharing more generally. The joint [...]

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THE LATEST: FTC to Look Closely at Competition between Biologics and Biosimilars and Patent Protection Strategies of Branded Manufacturers

by and | Jul 24, 2018 | , ,

WHAT HAPPENED

On July 18, 2018, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb delivered a speech at The Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, discussing how to bolster competition from biosimilars while maintaining innovation.

The Commissioner noted the absence of true competition among biologics from biosimilar products in the United States, similarly to what the country experienced 30 years ago with respect to generics. The Commissioner said that this situation is caused, in part, by what he views as anticompetitive practices implemented by branded manufacturers, such as:

  • Rebating schemes in which drug manufacturers bundle discounts to health insurers and employers across different pharmaceutical products;
  • Multi-year contracts granting important rebates to payors, often entered into right before the entry of a biosimilar on the market;
  • Volume-based rebates;
  • Tying rebates, i.e., when rebates are offered if a product is bought together with a biologic;
  • Patent thickets, i.e., when branded manufacturers’ own dense portfolios of overlapping intellectual property rights cover biologics; and
  • Bundling biologics with other products, i.e., when a product is sold together with a biologic.

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Aerospace & Defense Series: Behavioral Remedies Remain a Viable Solution for Vertical Mergers in the Defense Industry

by | Jun 18, 2018 | , ,

The recent FTC decision in the Northrop Grumman / Orbital ATK matter has shed light on the agency’s vertical merger enforcement policy and outlined a path to antitrust merger clearance for the Aerospace and Defense industry. The FTC’s June 5 consent decree shows behavioral remedies remain a viable solution if the parties can prove both that the DoD would benefit from the transaction and that those benefits would be lost if the agency required a divestiture.

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THE LATEST: Health Care Antitrust Enforcement Remains a Top Priority for New FTC Commissioners

by , and | May 4, 2018 | , ,

On April 27, 2018, the United States Senate confirmed President Trump’s five nominees for Commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Three are Republicans: Chairman Joseph Simons, Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson, and two are Democrats: Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Slaughter. The Senate’s vote returns the FTC to a full complement of Commissioners for the first time under the Trump Administration. Of note to participants in the health care sector: the FTC shares civil antitrust law enforcement jurisdiction over the health care industry with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, but takes the lead when it comes to the health care provider, pharmaceutical and medical device industries. (more…)



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FTC Alleges Another Price Discrimination Market – Seeks to Block Wilhelmsen’s Acquisition of Drew Marine

by and | Mar 15, 2018 | ,

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently announced that it has challenged a merger between Wilhelmsen Maritime Services (Wilhelmsen) and Drew Marine Group (Drew) because of an overlap in service to “global fleet customers,” a narrow customer segment that purchases marine water treatment chemicals and services.

WHAT HAPPENED:
  • The FTC issued an administrative complaint and filed a complaint in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, asserting that Wilhelmsen’s proposed $400 million acquisition of Drew would significantly reduce competition in the market for marine water treatment chemicals and services used by global fleets.
  • The FTC enforcement action focuses on a narrow sub-segment of customers, global fleet customers, that buys marine water treatment chemicals and services.
  • The FTC distinguished global fleet customers from other marine water treatment chemical customers on the basis that:
  • (1) global fleets have specialized needs that only a few suppliers can meet
    (turn-key global sales, service and delivery capabilities, as well as consistent and reliable product supply); and
  • (2) these customers seek out suppliers via requests for proposal and direct negotiation and therefore potential suppliers can price discriminate to that subset of customers.
  • Because of the specific needs of global fleet customers and because global fleet suppliers can identify which customers are seeking service for global fleets, suppliers are able to price discriminate to the global fleet customer set.
  • The FTC alleged a harm to competition because their investigation showed Wilhelmsen and Drew are each other’s closest competitors based on company documents, statements by the business personnel, and bid data showing that the companies are most frequently the first and second choice for global fleet customers. In addition, the FTC noted that Wilhelmsen and Drew would control at least 60 percent of the market with the next largest competitor having less than a 5 percent share.
  • The FTC complaint disparaged the remaining market participants as unable to practicably compete with Wilhelmsen and Drew to service global fleets because they are perceived as offering lower quality products with less reliability, having more limited service capabilities, and failing to price competitively.
WHAT THIS MEANS:
  • The FTC’s enforcement action continues a trend of applying price discrimination markets. These markets are characterized by: (1) buyers with special requirements that only select suppliers can service; and (2) sellers who can identify the buyers with those special requirements and selectively price based upon the knowledge of those special needs.
  • Antitrust enforcement of price discrimination markets lead to narrower product market definitions. Therefore, applying price discrimination markets may result in antitrust enforcers challenging mergers that appear lawful when viewed as a broader market.
  • There is increased risk of price discrimination markets being applied by antitrust enforcers in industries in which:
    • The customers’ end uses differ for the same product;
    • Merging companies’ documents recognize distinctions among customer groups; and
    • Groups of customers require unique product characteristics.


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THE LATEST: Divestitures of Complex Pipeline Pharmaceutical Products off the Table at the FTC

by and | Feb 9, 2018 | ,

WHAT HAPPENED:
  • Bruce Hoffman, acting director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), announced that the FTC will no longer accept divestitures of inhalant and injectable pipeline drugs in pharmaceutical mergers.
  • Hoffman, speaking at the Global Competition Review Seventh Annual Antitrust Law Leaders Forum on February 2, 2018, explained that divestitures of pipeline products were not working well for complex pharmaceuticals, such as inhalants and injectables.
  • Instead, in situations in which the parties to the transaction own both a successfully manufactured inhalant or injectable and an overlapping pipeline inhalant or injectable in a concentrated market, the FTC will seek a divestiture of the manufactured product.
  • An internal study at the FTC revealed that the rate of failure was “startlingly high” for divestitures of certain complex pipeline pharmaceutical products. Hoffman blamed the high failure rate on the difficulty in actually getting the complex pipeline pharmaceutical to market by a divestiture buyer. He explained that a divestiture buyer, for example, could struggle to reliably manufacture an inhalant or injectable product, frustrating its ability to ultimately bring the product to market.

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THE LATEST: FTC Challenges Retail Fuel Station and Convenience Store Transaction— Requires Ten Localized Divestitures in Wisconsin and Minnesota

by | Dec 28, 2017 | ,

WHAT HAPPENED:
  • Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. (ACT) and its subsidiaries (including Circle K Stores, Inc.) are engaged in the retail sale of gasoline and diesel fuel in the United States, as well as in the operation of convenience stores. ACT is the largest convenience store operator in terms of company-owned stores and is the second-largest chain overall in the United States.
  • Pursuant to an Equity Purchase Agreements, dated July 10, 2017, ACT would acquire, through its wholly owned subsidiary Oliver Acquisition Corp., all of the equity interests of certain Holiday subsidiary companies.
  • The FTC defined the relevant product markets as the retail sale of gasoline and the retail sale of diesel.
  • The FTC defined local geographic markets, identifying ten separate geographic markets in Wisconsin (including Hayward, Siren and Spooner) and Minnesota (including Aitkin, Hibbing, Minnetonka, Mora, Saint Paul and Saint Peter).
  • In its complaint, the FTC stated that the “relevant geographic markets for retail gasoline and retail diesel are highly localized, ranging up to a few miles, depending on local circumstances” and “[e]ach relevant market is distinct and fact-dependent, reflecting the commuting patterns, traffic flows, and outlet characteristics unique to each market.” Additionally, the FTC stated that “[c]onsumers typically choose between nearby retail fuel outlets with similar characteristics along their planned routes.”
  • In its complaint, the FTC alleged that post-merger the transaction would reduce the number of independent competitors from 3-to-2 in five local markets, and from 4-to-3 in five other local markets.
  • The FTC also stated that new entry was unlikely to mitigate the impact of the transaction in these local areas because there are significant entry barriers in the retail gasoline and diesel fuel business, including “the availability of attractive real estate, the time and cost associated with constructing a new retail fuel outlet, and the time associated with obtaining necessary permits and approvals.”
  • The FTC alleged that the proposed acquisition would result in (1) an increased likelihood that ACT and its subsidiaries would unilaterally exercise market power in the relevant markets; and (2) an increased likelihood of collusive or coordinated interaction between the remaining competitors in the relevant markets.
  • The FTC accepted a consent order in which ACT agreed to divest certain of its subsidiary’s and Holiday’s retail fuel outlets and related assets to remedy concern in ten local geographic markets in Wisconsin and Minnesota. ACT must complete the divestiture to a Commission-approved buyer within 120 days after the acquisition closes.
WHAT THIS MEANS:
  • Local geographic markets are highly fact specific. Factors used to determine local geographic markets for retail gasoline and retail diesel include: commuting patterns, traffic flows and outlet characteristics unique to each market.
  • In certain markets where only two or three independent competitors will remain post-transaction, the FTC may allege that the transaction will increase the likelihood of coordination though no collusive or coordinated interaction is alleged. Certain aspects of the fuel industry make it vulnerable to coordination including: [...]

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THE LATEST: FTC Challenges Non-HSR Reportable Retail Fuel Station Transaction— Requires Three Localized Divestitures in Alabama

by | Dec 6, 2017 | ,

WHAT HAPPENED:
  • Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. (ACT) is a Canadian corporation and is engaged in the retail sale of gasoline and diesel fuel in the United States. Circle K Stores, Inc. (Circle K) is a wholly owned subsidiary of ACT. Circle K indirectly owns all of the membership interests in CrossAmerica GP LLC, CrossAmerica Partners LP’s (CAPL) general partner.
  • Pursuant to three separate Asset Purchase Agreements, dated August 4, 2017, ACT would acquire ownership or operation of all Jet-Pep, Inc. retail fuel outlets. Specifically, Circle K would acquire 18 retail fuel outlets, a fuel terminal and related trucking assets and CAPL would acquire 102 Jet-Pep retail fuel outlets.
  • While the purchases did not require an HSR filing, the FTC learned of the transaction, investigated and required remedies before allowing the transaction to proceed.
  • The FTC defined the relevant product markets as the retail sale of gasoline and the retail sale of diesel.
  • The FTC defined the geographic markets as local markets and identified the three separate geographic markets in Alabama including Brewton, Monroeville and Valley.
  • In its complaint, the FTC alleged that post-merger the “number of competitively constraining independent market participants” would be reduced “to no more than three in each local market.”
  • The FTC alleged that the proposed acquisition would result in (1) an increased likelihood that ACT would unilaterally exercise market power in the relevant markets; and (2) an increased likelihood of collusive or coordinated interaction between the remaining competitors in the relevant markets.
  • The FTC accepted a consent order in which ACT agreed to divest certain Jet-Pep retail fuel outlets and related assets to remedy concern in three local geographic markets in Alabama. ACT must complete the divestiture to a Commission-approved buyer within 120 days after the acquisition closes.
WHAT THIS MEANS:
  • This consent decree is a reminder that even when a transaction is not HSR reportable, the transaction may still be reviewed and challenged by the FTC and DOJ.
  • Local geographic markets are highly fact specific. Factors used to determine local geographic markets for retail gasoline and retail diesel include: commuting patterns, traffic flows and outlet characteristics unique to each market.
  • If the proposed divestiture package is something less than a complete, autonomous and operable business unit, the parties must show that their proposed package will enable the buyer to maintain or restore competition in the market.
  • FTC and DOJ may not require a buyer-up-front where they have significant experience in the industries at issue, and where the ownership interest is a high-value, low-risk asset (e.g., retail fuel business) that is likely to generate substantial interest from more than one potentially acceptable buyer.


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