LITIGATION TRENDS 2025 | 15 T O C E M P E S G A N T I I P C A P R O W C S P O R T C O N T A C T I N T A P P P A T C C L S E C In the United States, the Biden Administration continued its aggressive antitrust enforcement agenda until its last days, including by launching two antitrust suits on the Friday before Inauguration Monday. Early signs from the second Trump Administration suggest antitrust scrutiny is unlikely to ease as much as some have predicted. Meanwhile, the rise of antitrust class actions in the UK raises risks for companies doing business across the pond. Clients should continue to anticipate antitrust scrutiny for both transactions and business practices that could lead to anticompetitive harm. U.S. Merger Scrutiny Unlikely to Abate Under Trump While the change in administration and leadership at the federal agencies may be more favorable to business generally, initial signals suggest that active antitrust enforcement and merger litigation will continue under the second Trump Administration. First, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division under the first Trump Administration brought several high profile merger cases, including challenges under both horizontal and vertical theories of harm. For example, federal enforcers litigated AT&T/Time Warner and opened investigations into Nvidia/ Arm and Illumina/Grail, with Republican FTC Commissioners nominated by Trump voting with their Democratic colleagues to challenge the latter two transactions. Second, the FTC and DOJ leadership under the second Trump Administration have signaled that they intend to follow certain policies from the Biden Administration. On February 18, 2025, the DOJ and FTC each announced their commitment to maintaining the 2023 Merger Guidelines, which advocates a presumption of illegality for mergers with a combined market share starting at 30% and is perceived as a lowering of the standard for government merger challenges. Newly appointed FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson explained that maintaining the 2023 Merger Guidelines promotes predictability and stability and saves limited government resources from having to rewrite guidelines with each Antitrust Jenine Hulsmann Co-Head, Europe London, Brussels jenine.hulsmann@weil.com Brianne Kucerik Co-Head, U.S. Washington, D.C. brianne.kucerik@weil.com Michael Moiseyev Co-Head, U.S. Washington, D.C. michael.moiseyev@weil.com Jeffrey H. Perry Co-Head, U.S. Washington, D.C. jeffrey.perry@weil.com I 14 | Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
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