State oversight of healthcare transactions is continuing to undergo a significant transformation. As tracked in our updated Healthcare Merger Matrix, the number of states implementing or considering expanding antitrust laws targeting proposed deals continues to rise.[1] For instance, Washington and Colorado’s premerger notification laws went into effect on July 27 and August 6, 2025, respectively, and Indiana recently modified its existing transaction notice law to exempt certain practitioner-owned practices.[2] Additionally, New Mexico enacted a permanent version of its temporary transaction notification law with enhanced oversight and enforcement.[3]…
Continue Reading State Antitrust Enforcement Roundup: Updates to Healthcare Merger Matrix; New Potential Legislation Targeting Private Equity and Other For-Profit Entities in Healthcare

On August 13, 2025, President Trump revoked the Biden Administration’s 2021 Executive Order (Promoting Competition in the American Economy).
Continue Reading Trump Revokes Biden Administration’s Executive Order on Antitrust & Competition but other Biden Administration Antitrust Policy Changes Remain in Place

On 9 July 2025, the General Court of the European Union delivered its judgment in Case T-188/24 Michelin, addressing the scope of the European Commission’s powers to conduct on-site inspections (so-called dawn raids) under EU competition law. The Court broadly confirmed the Commission’s powers but sided with the claimant in partially annulling the Commission’s inspection decision, highlighting the requirement for a sufficient statement of reasons before the Commission may search companies’ premises. This judgement also gives insights into the European Commission’s increased efforts to uncover anticompetitive conduct ex officio in the context of a significant reduction of immunity/leniency applications. …
Continue Reading Fishing Expedition or Legitimate Dawn Raid? The Latest on European Commission’s Cartel Enforcement and Dawn Raids from the EU’s General Court

On July 24, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) convened the second of three public listening sessions aimed at identifying barriers to drug price competition in the U.S. healthcare system. The session is part of a broader policy push under Executive Order 14273, “Lowering Drug Prices by Once Again Putting Americans First,” which mandates a coordinated federal effort to investigate and dismantle anticompetitive practices within the pharmaceutical sector, with the overarching goal of reducing prescription drug costs for Americans. The July 24th session concentrated on issues relating to formulary design, benefit management, and…
Continue Reading DOJ and FTC Host Second Session on Structural and Regulatory Impediments to Drug Competition

Judge Lewis Liman in the Southern District of New York recently dismissed antitrust complaints brought by direct and indirect purchasers against six major suppliers of concrete admixtures, cement additives, admixtures for mortar, and related products (“CCAs”), alleging that the suppliers conspired to fix prices.[1] Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that between 2017 and present, defendants agreed to raise the prices of CCAs, including through surcharges and price sheets. In addition to these allegedly “parallel” price increases, plaintiffs further alleged:…
Continue Reading Cement and Concrete Admixture Price Fixing Conspiracy Allegations Not Strong Enough to Survive Motion to Dismiss

As we predicted before the inauguration, Trump 2.0 antitrust enforcers have shown continued support for the pro-worker, anti-tech antitrust agenda that has permeated recent antitrust enforcement through the last two administration changes. This time around, President Trump appointed competition agency leaders in Chair Ferguson at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and AAG Slater at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) who identify with a brand of conservative populism coalescing around many of the same policies and priorities as Biden-appointed competition leaders like FTC Chair Lina Khan. For example, since the inauguration, antitrust agencies under their leadership have forged on…
Continue Reading Red Tape Rollback: DOJ’s Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force

Four days before President Trump took office, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) (together, “the Agencies”) under the Biden administration released their “Antitrust Guidelines for Business Activities Affecting Workers” (“The Guidelines”). These Guidelines replace and expand upon antitrust guidance for HR professionals that the Obama administration issued in 2016. The new Guidelines aim to clarify how the DOJ and FTC “identify and assess business practices affecting workers that may violate the antitrust laws.”…
Continue Reading DOJ and FTC Issue Antitrust Guidelines for Business Activities Affecting Workers

The outlook for federal antitrust enforcement remains murky, at best, with uncertainty about whether the new federal HSR rules, merger guidelines, and existing enforcement actions.
Continue Reading Navigating the Matrix of State Healthcare Approvals

A proposed amendment to New York’s Donnelly Act, introduced earlier this month, would significantly broaden the scope of the antitrust statute enacted in 1899. New York Senate Bill 335, titled the “Twenty-First Century Anti-Trust Act” seeks to modernize the State’s antitrust laws to address “New York’s great concern with the growing accumulation of power in the hands of dominant corporations that undermines the power of workers, consumers, and small businesses.” If passed, it would be one of, if not the most, aggressive set of state antitrust laws to date, and arguably more akin to antitrust jurisprudence in the European…
Continue Reading Amending New York’s Donnelly Act: If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try, and Try Again

1. Higher Jurisdictional Thresholds For HSR Filings…
Continue Reading Thresholds for HSR Act Premerger Notifications and Interlocking Directorates Announced

What antitrust enforcement will look like during a second Trump administration is, like antitrust law, complicated. Notions that Republicans are pro-business and therefore will take a laissez-faire approach to antitrust enforcement are outdated and simplistic. During Trump’s first term, antitrust enforcement was far from moribund, blending traditional Republican preferences for deregulation with a populist skepticism toward Big Tech and market concentration generally. This anomalistic meeting of progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans in the antitrust space even garnered a mash-up moniker – the “Khanservaties” – a group of conservative Republicans including Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and erstwhile Attorney General nominee and…
Continue Reading Antitrust During Trump 2.0: It’s Complicated

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (“Antitrust Division”) recently updated its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs in Criminal Antitrust Investigations guidance document (“Antitrust Compliance Guidance”). Corporate counsel and compliance officers should seriously consider these updates when crafting and implementing an antitrust compliance program.
Continue Reading Key Takeaways from the DOJ Antitrust Division’s Updated Compliance Guidance: It’s Not Just Criminal Anymore

Republican and Democrat candidates alike have promised along the campaign trail that they will work to address the costs of everyday essentials for American consumers, particularly for food. One of the centerpieces of the Harris-Walz campaign is enacting “the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries”[1] and the Trump-Vance campaign has decried the rising price of eggs as a byproduct of the Biden Administration’s economic policies.[2] Candidates’ focus on the checkout counter is unsurprising given reports that rising prices are one of voters’ top concerns this election cycle. And while the Consumer Price Index indicates that…
Continue Reading Campaign Promises to Address Rising Prices at the Grocery Store Signal Stronger Price Gouging Investigations, Enforcement Actions, and Prohibitions to Come