Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: FTC announces 2015 thresholds for Clayton Act antitrust reviews, (Jan 15, 2015)

The FTC has revised the thresholds that determine whether companies are required to notify federal antitrust authorities about a transaction under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Improvements Act (Section 7A of the Clayton Act), according to a January 15 announcement. The Commission has also announced revisions to the thresholds that trigger a prohibition preventing companies from having interlocking memberships on their corporate boards of directors, pursuant to Section 8 of the Clayton Act.

The HSR Act requires companies to notify authorities if the size of the parties at issue and the value of a transaction exceed the filing thresholds, absent an applicable exemption. The FTC is required to revise various thresholds set forth in the HSR Act annually, based on the change in gross national product. For 2015, the size-of-transaction threshold for reporting proposed mergers and acquisitions subject to enforcement under Section 7A of the Clayton Act will increase from $75.9 million to $76.3 million. The revised thresholds under Section 7A will apply to all transactions that close on or after the effective date of the notice, which is 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

The new thresholds for the prohibition on interlocking directorates under Section 8 of the Clayton Act in 2015 are $31,084,000 for Section 8(a)(1) and $3,108,400 for Section 8(a)(2)(A). The figures for Section 8 become effective immediately upon publication of notice in the Federal Register.

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