US antitrust agencies marked the third quarter of 2018 with significant policy announcements regarding the merger review process, with focus on expediting the review process through cooperation between the agencies and the merging parties. Overseas, the European Commission (EC) also remained quite active clearing mergers in the third quarter of 2018. Access to data is a hot-button issue that the EC will continue to investigate going forward with a careful approach in assessing when that access will truly lead to a competitive harm.
McDermott’s Antitrust M&A Snapshot is a resource for in-house counsel and others who deal with antitrust M&A issues but are not faced with these issues on a daily basis. In each quarterly issue, we will provide concise summaries of Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice (DOJ) and European Commission (EC) news and events related to M&A, including significant ongoing investigations, trials and consent orders, as well as analysis on the trends we see developing in the antitrust review process.
