ANALYSIS: New HSR Report Shows Demise of ‘Early Terminations’

The demise of the “early termination” option for mergers and acquisitions—which used to allow mergers that pose no danger to competition to close quickly—is complete, with implications for the vast majority of mergers notified to antitrust regulators in the US.

The Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department in February 2021 temporarily suspended the early notification option for mergers that was available under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Since then, it’s been difficult to know exactly how many such requests the agencies have granted.

But the agencies’ latest annual report to Congress on the premerger notification program shows that they granted ...