Articles Posted in Merger Highlights

On February 13, 2008, the DOJ entered into a settlement agreement with Clear Channel, the largest operator of radio stations in the United States, to divest radio stations in four cities in order for a group of private equity investors led by Bain Capital (“Bain”) and Thomas H. Lee Partners (“THL”) to proceed with their…

On January 26, 2008 Hexion Specialty Chemicals announced that both it and Huntsman Corporation agreed to allow additional time for the Federal Trade Commission to review the proposed merger of the two companies. As a result, the merger is not expected to close before May 3. To accommodate the extension, Hexion also gave notice to…

On January 24, 2008 the DOJ announced that it will require Pearson Plc to divest assets relating to three clinical testing markets in order to proceed with Pearson’s proposed $950 million acquisition of Harcourt Assessment. The DOJ claimed that the deal would have resulted in higher prices to purchasers of clinical tests, including many school…

On December 20, 2007 the Federal Trade Commission announced that it will not seek to block Google Inc.’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of Internet advertising server DoubleClick Inc. In a 4-1 vote to close its eight-month investigation of the transaction, the Commission wrote in its majority statement that “after carefully reviewing the evidence, we have…

On November 16, 2007, the Federal Trade Commission entered into a settlement regarding Schering-Plough Corporation’s proposed $14.4 billion acquisition of Organon BioSciences N.V. from Akzo-Nobel N.V. The FTC alleges that the deal harms competition in the U.S. markets for the manufacture and development of three poultry vaccines. In settling the charges, the companies entered into…

On October 26, 2007 the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) entered into a settlement agreement with Owens Corning regarding its proposed acquisition of the glass fiber reinforcements and composite fabric assets of Compagnie de Saint Gobain (Saint Gobain). The complaint accompanying the consent agreement asserts that the deal reduces competition in the North American market for…

On October 24, 2007, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it will require two of the nation’s largest newsprint manufacturers – Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. and Bowater Inc.- to divest a newsprint mill in Arizona. As originally laid out, the DOJ alleged that the $1.6 billion transaction would have considerably hampered competition in the production and…

On November 13, 2007, the Department of Justice announced that it reached a settlement that will require Vulcan Materials Company and Florida Rock Industries Inc. to divest eight quarries that produce coarse aggregate in Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia and one distribution yard in Virginia in order to proceed with their proposed $4.6 billion merger. The…

On October 8, 2007, the European Commission (the “Commission”) initiated Phase II proceedings into the proposed acquisition of Reuters by Thomson. The in-depth assessment affords the Commission the opportunity to further examine the impact on competition of the proposed acquisition on the affected markets, notably for the supply of financial information. In particular, the Commission…

On October 9, 2007 the Federal Trade Commission entered into a settlement agreement with Kyphon, Inc. (“Kyphon”) that allows Kyphon to acquire the spinal assets of Disc-O-Tech Medical Technologies, Ltd. and Discotech Orthopedic Technologies, Inc. (collectively “Disc-O-Tech”). According to the complaint filed with the settlement agreement, the post-merger U.S. market for minimally invasive vertebral compression…