Insights

Washington – August 15, 2024: The 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 42 Crowell & Moring lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 29 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

Washington – August 17, 2023: The 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 47 firm lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 41 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

Washington – August 18, 2022: The 2023 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 54 firm lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 32 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

On July 23, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division announced that it will again use targeted Second Request investigations and released a revised Model Timing Agreement, another signal that this Antitrust Division continues to take a more business friendly approach toward merger review. The model introduces an optional “Expedited Consideration” process that gives merging parties the option to address discrete competitive concerns identified by the DOJ before undertaking full Second Request compliance.

On February 10, 2026, California enacted Senate Bill 25 (“SB 25”), known as the California Uniform Antitrust Pre-Merger Notification Act. The new law takes effect on January 1, 2027, making California the third state—following Washington (effective July 27, 2025) and Colorado (effective August 6, 2025)—to implement a “mini-HSR” regime modeled after the Uniform Antitrust Pre-Merger Notification Act (“UAPNA”). The legislation reflects the growing state-level focus on merger oversight, and it signals California’s continuing intent to increase early pre-merger scrutiny and concurrent review of transactions with federal authorities.

In a hotly contested 3-to-2 vote, the Federal Trade Commission in December 2020 issued a 43-page Commentary on Vertical Merger Enforcement (“Commentary”) that examines the agency’s prior vertical merger enforcement actions. While the Commentary does not break new ground, it helpfully compiles the FTC’s vertical enforcement record from the past quarter century and summarizes the Commission’s theories of harm and analysis of both anticompetitive effects (e.g., foreclosure and raising rivals’ costs) and pro-competitive benefits (e.g., elimination of double marginalization and efficiencies) in vertical merger reviews. Most notably, the Commissioners’ statements on the Commentary once again reveal a deep split—along party lines—about the agency’s approach to vertical merger enforcement and remedies, and portend potentially substantial enforcement changes under the Biden administration.