Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ACQUISITIONS & MERGERS NEWS: FTC and DOJ seek comments on premerger notification and report form, (Mar 27, 2026)

By WK Editorial Staff

The agencies continue to believe that the nearly 50-year old form, now the operative form after an updated version was recently vacated in litigation, needs updating.

The FTC and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division announced a joint public inquiry regarding the effectiveness of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act’s (HSR Act) premerger reporting requirements. The joint request for public comments on the effectiveness of the updated version of the HSR form, which took effect in February 2025 (Updated Form) and was in place for over a year until a federal district court vacated the Updated Form in February 2026.

Earlier this month, a U.S. Court of Appeals denied the Commission’s motion for a stay pending appeal. As a result, the agencies previously announced that they are now accepting HSR filings using the same Form and Instructions that were in place before the Updated Form took effect. The Agencies will also continue to accept HSR filings made pursuant to the Updated Form and Instructions should filers voluntarily submit them.

The FTC said it continues to believe that the prior, nearly 50-year-old form is insufficient to review modern mergers and acquisitions. Regardless of the outcome of the litigation challenging the Updated Form, the FTC is considering engaging in a new rulemaking process.

Through the joint request for information, the FTC and DOJ seek to understand whether the requirements of the Updated Form effectively fulfill their intended purpose to:

• Enable the Agencies to identify potentially anticompetitive mergers more efficiently; and

• Allow the Agencies to more quickly determine whether a deal would require the issuance of Second Requests to conduct an in-depth antitrust investigation.

Under the HSR Act, parties to certain mergers and acquisitions are required to submit premerger notification forms that disclose certain information about their proposed deal and business operations. The Agencies use this information to conduct a premerger assessment in the short time allowed under the HSR Act, typically 30 days.

In the joint request for information, the agencies want to ensure that the requirements of the Updated Form do not impose burdens on filers that outweigh the usefulness of the information provided to the FTC and DOJ. As elaborated in more detail in the request, the agencies are also evaluating whether additional modifications to the Updated Form may be warranted to address developments affecting the HSR review process that have emerged over the past year.

The agencies seek to gather feedback from the public on the implementation, effects, and potential areas for further refinement of the Updated Form. The agencies ultimately seek to reduce the burden for non-problematic transactions while also making necessary updates informed by lessons learned from experience with the Updated Form.

Comments can be submitted at Regulations.gov and must be received no later than May 26, 2026. The information will be used by the agencies to plan future actions related to the premerger notification and report form.

News: Antitrust AcquisitionsMergers FederalTradeCommissionNews AntitrustDivisionNews