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 undertaken by at least 15 federal departments, offices, and agencies. The Biden Administration’s stated hope is that these efforts will drive down prices for consumers, increase wages for workers, and facilitate innovation.
Continue Reading Biden Administration Calls for Whole-of-Government Approach to More Vigorous Antitrust Enforcement

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 Commission’s (FTC) longstanding practice under § 13(b) of the FTC Act of seeking disgorgement or restitution orders in cases brought by the agency in federal courts.
Continue Reading Supreme Court: FTC May Not Seek Restitution Directly in Federal Court

The CMA has provided guidance on its expected approach to merger assessments during the Covid-19 pandemic. While the timescales and substantive assessment of a merger’s effects on competition remain unchanged, the CMA has made a number of adjustments to its working arrangements in order to meet deadlines and progress cases. However, it is likely that some aspects of investigations may be subject to some delay.
Continue Reading CMA Guidance on its Approach to Merger Assessments during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In a series of recent statements, the UK Financial Conduct Authority  (FCA) has set out how it expects the insurance industry to help consumers and businesses affected by the coronavirus.

The FCA would like to see a degree of consistency across the industry in how business interruption claims are handled. To help to achieve such consistency, the FCA is planning to ask the English court to make declarations about the scope of various business interruption (BI) clauses.Continue Reading FCA’s Statements about Insurance and the Coronavirus: Competition Considerations

At the beginning of April 2020, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) handed down a preliminary ruling in Case C-228/18, Gazdasági Versenyhivatal v Budapest Bank Nyrt. and others and thus clarifying and reinstating certain aspects of the “by object” assessment. As a reminder, it is a well-established EU competition law principle that if a restriction is considered to be anticompetitive by object, the competition authorities are not required to examine its effects. For example, price fixing, input restrictions, bid-rigging, collective agreements to boycott, resale price maintenance are considered to have negative effects, in particular, on the price, quantity, or quality of goods or services, that they can be regarded as falling within Article 101(1) of the Treaty on Functioning of the EU (TFEU)  without the need to demonstrate any actual or likely anti-competitive effects on the market.
Continue Reading The Court of Justice of the EU Gives a Preliminary Ruling Clarifying and Reinstating Certain Aspects of the “by Object” Assessment