The Biden administration has made promoting competition a top priority, as reflected in President Biden’s July executive order on competition. (For a complete description of the executive order and developments in its implementation, please visit Steptoe’s Executive Order on Competition
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The FTC Inserts More Uncertainty into the HSR Review Process
In a blog post released on August 3, 2021, FTC Bureau of Competition Acting Director, Holly Vedova, announced that, in response to “a tidal wave of merger filings,” the FTC had begun to send standard form letters “alerting companies that
Biden Administration Calls for Whole-of-Government Approach to More Vigorous Antitrust Enforcement
President Biden’s unprecedented July 9, 2021, Executive Order 14036 represents a potential watershed moment in U.S. competition policy. The wide-ranging Executive Order (EO) includes 72 initiatives that aim to enforce existing antitrust laws and other consumer protection regulations, to be
Poaching: The Biden Executive Order and Employment Restrictions in Europe
No-poach and wage-fixing agreements – arrangements between companies seeking to prevent or limit the hiring of each other’s employees, or to suppress the wages and/or benefits of their respective current employees are not only currently under the spotlight in the
The UK Competition and Markets Authority’s Vertical Agreement Proposals – Still Anchored to the EU?
Despite the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the EU Vertical Agreement Block Exemption Regulation (retained VABER) continues to offer a safe harbor with respect to potentially anti-competitive vertical or supply agreements with an effect on trade within the UK. In
Antitrust Enforcement in the Biden Administration: What We Know from the First 100 Days
Steptoe’s Antitrust practice hosted a complimentary webinar on antitrust enforcement in the Biden administration. Click here to access the recording.
During the webinar, the team compared and contrasted enforcement priorities and actions from the Trump administration with the positions
Supreme Court: FTC May Not Seek Restitution Directly in Federal Court
As we predicted in Steptoe’s client webinar last week on “Antitrust Enforcement in the Biden Administration – What We Know from The First 100 Days,” on April 22, 2021 the US Supreme Court put an end to the Federal Trade
Attack of the Killer Acquisitions
A ‘killer acquisition’ is an acquisition of a potential rival whilst they are still in the early stages of their development, whose turnover is small or zero, in order to eliminate them as a possible source of future competition. Such
Home-Coming of Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate Bars (Part 1)
On March 2, 2021, the UK signed a trade partnership agreement with Ghana. Recently, Cadbury, which is wholly owned by Mondelez, has announced that it is moving some production of its iconic Dairy Milk chocolate bars from Germany to the
EU/UK Trade Post-Brexit: Rules of Origin and Their Impact on Competition Law
The following note highlights certain barriers to free trade flows between the UK and the EU that have arisen in the post-Brexit era, with particular reference to rules of origin and origin procedures. It assesses the consequences these new rules