Insights

Washington – June 21, 2024: Human Rights First honored Crowell & Moring lawyers Alexis Gilman, Tai Williams, Lauren Fleming, and Amber Gonzales with the Pro Bono Star Award in recognition of their teamwork and extraordinary commitment to representing and protecting asylum seekers. The group was honored at Human Rights First’s World Refugee Day Open House on June 20 in Washington, D.C.

In our latest Bloomberg Law article about the growing range of antitrust concerns facing government contractors, Crowell lawyers Michelle D. Coleman and Lauren Fleming explore best practices for contractors who are navigating antitrust investigations involving classified information. 

The Southern District of Texas published an unsealed version of its January 31, 2025 opinion denying the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin Tempur Sealy’s acquisition of Mattress Firm. The decision marks another loss for vertical merger enforcement efforts, particularly agency efforts to block these deals outright rather than accept settlement “fixes.” This case—coupled with other agency losses like AT&T/Time Warner and Microsoft/Activision—will likely make it even more difficult for enforcers to win vertical merger challenges, particularly when the merging parties lack sufficient market share to foreclose competitors and offer remedies to fix the alleged competitive concerns.

The Federal Trade Commission voted unanimously to pass a final rule implementing significant changes to the premerger notification regime under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act. The Department of Justice concurred with the vote. The final rule significantly reins back the agency’s proposed rule issued in June 2023—a proposal that would have imposed substantial new burdens on merging parties and prompted widespread criticism. The final rule is still the most significant overhaul of the HSR premerger notification requirements in decades, and the new requirements will impose additional time and expense on merging parties, some of which can be mitigated by putting processes in place in advance.