On September 24, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio denied the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the merger of Steris Corporation and Synergy Health plc, two providers of sterilization services for manufacturers predominantly in the healthcare industry. Merger cases are rarely litigated, and the decision marks the first trial defeat in recent years for either of the U.S. antitrust agencies (the FTC and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (collectively, the “Agencies”)), each of which has been successful in its active approach towards merger enforcement during the Obama Administration. In addition, the court’s analysis of the “actual potential competition” or “future competition” theory of harm — which posits that a merger between an existing competitor and a probable entrant in a concentrated industry may substantially lessen competition by depriving the marketplace of the competition that would have resulted from the entry — is informative, especially given that the theory has a controversial history but has continued to gain traction in recent Agency merger enforcement actions.
Read more
Location