Partners Carl Hittinger and Will Chuchawat are quoted in a Law360 article on the new guidelines toward more aggressive merger enforcement, as recently announced by the U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, and the Fifth Circuit’s decision on DNA sequencing giant Illumina’s reacquisition of cancer testing company Grail. Published Jan. 9, 2024, the article outlines how the combined guidelines and ruling could steer merger enforcement and challenge rampant industry consolidation, including vertical mergers.
Hittinger stated that the review process will be more costly to merging parties, since it will be their burden of proof to demonstrate how the proposed merger will not harm competition. Chuchawat points out that the final guidelines take a softer approach than the draft, which considered a 30% market share created by a merger between direct competitors as “an impermissible threat of undue concentration.”