ANALYSIS: As Reviews Stretch, M&A Deals Keep Shorter Deadlines

Although in-depth, U.S. antitrust reviews take an average of 12 months to complete, Bloomberg Law’s review of large, publicly available M&A agreements signed during the first three quarters of 2021 shows that most have an initial “outside date” less than 10 months from the date of signing.

We reviewed 81 publicly available M&A agreements for deals valued at $1 billion or greater, involving at least one U.S. party, signed between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, and still pending as of the date of our review (Oct.18). For each of these 81 agreements, we calculated the duration in months from the ...