Publications and Presentations

On April 9, 2025, President Trump issued four executive orders and presidential memoranda directing a range of deregulatory actions by agencies across the executive branch. These orders are remarkable in their scope, directing agencies (even independent ones) to review and revoke an expansive set of regulations across numerous subjects. But the orders are also remarkable in the procedures they compel. 

On February 25, 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), sitting in the Grand Chamber, rendered a preliminary ruling in which it answered several questions raised by the Consiglio di Stato, Italy’s highest administrative court (the Referring Court), concerning Art. 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) which prohibits dominant companies from abusing their market power.

Join members of Arnold & Porter’s Antitrust/Competition practice group in a three-part webinar series that delves into the evolving U.S. antitrust enforcement landscape.

Stay informed on the latest antitrust agency investigations and make informed decisions for your business. Our newsletter offers analytical insight into the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission's enforcement priorities and approaches to competition issues.

Meredith Osborn, a member of the firm’s White Collar Defense & Investigations practice, and Bill Efron, a member of the firm’s Antitrust practice, are leading a webinar hosted by the American FinTech Counsel, Innovation and Enforcement: Managing Risk During Upheaval in Fintech Regulation and the CFPB.

On February 26, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission announced a new Labor Markets Task Force to combat deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive labor market practices.

State legislatures across the country are considering legislation that would increase antitrust scrutiny for a variety of business activities. For example, in July 2024, the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), which drafts uniform laws that states may adopt, approved the Uniform Antitrust Pre-Merger Notification Act, which would give state attorneys general access to certain filings made pursuant to the federal Hart-Scott Rodino Act (HSR), increasing scrutiny of mergers and acquisitions transactions. Thus far, the District of Columbia, California, Colorado, Hawaii, and Washington have introduced legislation mirroring the ULC’s Uniform Antitrust Pre-Merger Notification Act. Notably, California and New York are considering updates to their antitrust laws that would go even further than the reforms promoted by the ULC and would represent a drastic shift in antitrust enforcement in those states.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken an aggressive approach to crack down on what it views as illegal auto-renewal subscription practices. Last year, the FTC finalized its “click-to-cancel” rule, requiring companies to provide a “simple” mechanism to cancel negative option contracts. 

On January 16, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued new Antitrust Guidelines for Business Activities Affecting Workers (the Guidelines), replacing the agencies’ 2016 Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals (the 2016 HR Guidance). The Guidelines continue DOJ’s focus on no-poach, wage-fixing, and information-sharing agreements and FTC’s focus on non-compete agreements. However, the Guidelines go beyond the 2016 HR Guidance by addressing non-disclosure agreements, hiring restrictions in franchise agreements, non-solicitation agreements with employees, training repayment agreements, exit fee and liquidated damages agreements, and false earnings claims. 

On January 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (DOJ) filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against KKR & Co. Inc. and its co-defendant investment advisors and funds (collectively, KKR) for purported violations of federal law governing certain mergers and acquisitions for at least 16 transactions from 2021 to 2022.

Stay informed on the latest antitrust agency investigations and make informed decisions for your business. Our newsletter offers analytical insight into the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission's enforcement priorities and approaches to competition issues.

The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) obtained a record $5.6 million settlement for gun-jumping from defendants XCL Resources Holdings, LLC (XCL), Verdun Oil Company II, LLC (Verdun), and EP Energy LLC (EP). XCL and Verdun (which are under common management) agreed to acquire certain of EP’s operations for $1.4 billion. Each of XCL and Verdun made Hart-Scott-Rodino Act (HSR Act) filings for the acquisition as did EP as the acquired person.

The Court of Appeal (CoA) has overturned the decision of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in Hydrocortisone, which stated that the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had failed to properly put its case to a witness in cross-examination. The CoA concluded that the CAT had strayed from the appropriate procedural path in a number of ways. The CoA’s decision is a reminder that the procedural flexibility that the CAT may exercise is not unlimited. The judgment also clarified that dishonesty does not form part of the legal test for proving a breach of the Chapter I prohibition in the Competition Act 1998.

The U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (Antitrust Division) has published its updated guidance on the Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs in Criminal Antitrust Investigations (Guidance). The latest version of the Guidance, issued November 2024, is the first update since it was originally published in July 2019.