With President Joe Biden’s departure, aggressive antitrust enforcers on the U.S. Division of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division and the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) will hand over the reins to incoming Trump Administration appointees who don’t share their predecessors‘ dogmatic dedication to an anti-monopoly (typically derisively known as „hipster antitrust“) agenda.
In apply, this agenda prioritized main enforcement actions towards know-how giants and impressive efforts to develop the antitrust businesses‘ powers. These efforts included utilizing rulemaking powers to dam employers from imposing non-compete restrictions on staff or adopting or revising coverage pointers to aim to strengthen the businesses‘ fingers in litigation. When it got here to making use of the antitrust legal guidelines to mergers and acquisitions, the businesses usually appeared to undertake a stance that each one mergers had been inherently problematic and appeared to measure their success primarily based on the variety of proposed transactions merging events deserted, no matter whether or not these offers may need yielded important efficiencies or resulted in increased costs for shoppers.
Transportation was not a significant focus of the Biden antitrust businesses, however its enforcers (as famous in a latest Holland & Knight weblog submit) challenged an airline merger and a significant industrial alliance between industrial airways, and in October 2024 solicited details about competitors within the trade.
Companies within the transportation and infrastructure sectors ought to anticipate a much less aggressive and extra accommodating antitrust enforcement posture within the new administration, however in no way a hands-off strategy. Corporations pursuing mergers and acquisitions will not face hostile businesses dedicated to stopping the consummation of as many transactions as attainable. The second Trump Administration’s Antitrust Division and FTC are anticipated to revive „early termination“ of Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) ready intervals for offers with no prospect of impacting competitors. They’re additionally seemingly return to partaking extra constructively with merging events on divestitures or different treatments to doubtlessly anticompetitive mergers, and is perhaps extra open to factoring into their analyses how sure transactions would possibly create extra environment friendly and aggressive companies.
The brand new administration may additionally rethink a number of the extra aggressive coverage statements adopted throughout the Biden Administration, together with new Merger Tips that (amongst different issues) lowered market share and focus thresholds for locating transactions presumptively anticompetitive. Nonetheless, notably on the subject of transactions between head-to-head, „horizontal“ opponents, the antitrust businesses (as they did throughout the first Trump Administration) will seemingly proceed to implement the antitrust legal guidelines aggressively.
The transportation and infrastructure industries weren’t an apparent enforcement precedence of the primary Trump Administration’s antitrust enforcers, and nothing about President-Elect Donald Trump’s nominees to steer the antitrust businesses – Gail Slater on the Antitrust Division or Andrew Ferguson on the FTC – means that they’ll prioritize these sectors specifically going ahead. However to the extent the businesses search to reply to financial issues that appeared to encourage many citizens within the 2024 election, distinguished targets of periodic shopper dissatisfaction comparable to airways might stay within the crosshairs below new management.
20 Posts in 20 Days Resulting in Inauguration Day on Jan. 20
Holland & Knight’s Transportation & Infrastructure Business Sector Group is ready to help trade shoppers in adapting to the anticipated modifications by the brand new administration. Our staff is writing new weblog posts every day main as much as President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, with insights relating to seemingly impacts on the assorted segments of the trade, together with Aviation, Development, Maritime, Freight Rail, Motor Carriers, Transit and Autonomous Transportation. Bookmark our Election Impacts on Transportation & Infrastructure useful resource web page to observe alongside.
