Lessons From 3 Antitrust Agency Losses in Merger Trials

Litigation partner Gorav Jindal and antitrust / competition counsel Brian Rafkin wrote an article for Law 360, examining the lessons from three losses in litigated merger challenges in September.

The three cases and decisions that are examined in the article are:

• The Matter of Illumina Inc. and Grail Inc. in which Federal Trade Commission Chief Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell found the commission failed to demonstrate that the vertical merger between Illumina and Grail would harm competition in the market for available and developmental multi-cancer early detection tests.
• U.S. v UnitedHealth Group Inc. in which U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled against the U.S. Department of Justice and allowed the proposed merger between UnitedHealth and Change Healthcare Inc. to proceed.
• U.S. v U.S. Sugar Corp, a decision which showed the DOJ again failed to demonstrate that the proposed merger between the U.S. Sugar and Imperial Sugar Co. would harm competition in the alleged refined sugar market.

The article then details the key takeaways for companies considering strategic deals.

Read the full article here.