Insights

On March 19, 2026, a U.S. District Court for the Fifth Circuit panel denied the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) emergency motion for a stay pending appeal of a district court’s order that vacated the FTC’s 2024 overhaul of the HSR premerger notification form.

On February 20, 2026, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (DOJ) and Ohio Attorney General (Ohio AG) sued OhioHealth Corporation (OhioHealth), alleging that OhioHealth had unlawfully restrained trade in the market for general acute care inpatient hospital services in the Columbus metropolitan statistical area and the narrower Central Columbus area, respectively. The DOJ and Ohio AG allege violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, as well as the Valentine Act (Ohio’s antitrust statute), claiming that OhioHealth leveraged its market power to impose contractual restrictions that blocked payors from working with competing health systems to design “budget-conscious” lower-cost health plans.

In October 2024, the FTC adopted a final rule that substantially modified the HSR form, requiring new categories of information and documents. The final rule was the most significant overhaul of the HSR premerger notification requirements in decades. The new requirements imposed additional time and expense on merging parties, with the FTC estimating that the new form would likely take triple the amount of time to complete than the previous form. Numerous groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sued to challenge the rule.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced its annual updates to the thresholds and filing fees related to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the HSR Act). These dollar thresholds are indexed annually based on changes in the U.S. gross national product and the Consumer Price Index.

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.

The saga of DNA-sequencing firm Illumina’s quest to acquire cancer detection-test maker Grail ended last month when the Fifth Circuit largely upheld the Federal Trade Commission’s decision to block the deal. The appellate decision is significant on several levels.  First, it is the first time in decades that either federal antitrust enforcer has succeeded in blocking or forcing the abandonment of a vertical merger after litigating to a decision.

In a first-of-its kind enforcement action, on Wednesday the Federal Trade Commission announced settlements with three companies and two individuals who the agency claimed violated Section 5 of the FTC Act by imposing non-compete restrictions on their workers that the agency said constituted an unfair method of competition. The agency said these non-compete restrictions prevented workers from obtaining higher wages and impeded other companies’ ability to compete.

One of the longest running controversies in antitrust enforcement policy concerns the breadth of the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to define and prohibit “unfair methods of competition” under Section 5 of the FTC Act.  In April of this year, the new Commission majority withdrew the brief Statement of Enforcement Principles issued in 2015, asserting that the earlier Statement imposed unwarranted constraints on the Commission’s authority and promising new guidance.  That guidance was issued last week and portends a significantly more expansive approach to FTC antitrust enforcement on a wide range of conduct, including exclusive contracts, refusals to deal, bundling, price discrimination, and serial acquisitions.

The Supreme Court yesterday heard oral arguments in Axon Enterprises v. The Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission v. Cochran, both of which present the question whether parties to administrative enforcement actions can promptly challenge the authority and structure of the agencies in federal district courts, or must await the conclusion of the administrative proceedings to raise their objections in the courts of appeals, as is provided for in the FTC Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act. The two cases come at a time when the Supreme Court has been receptive to complaints about administrative agency authority and at least some of the justices appeared ready to clear the way for Axon and Cochran to return to the district courts to pursue their wide-ranging challenges to the authority of the FTC and SEC, respectively.