Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: FTC announces 2016 thresholds for Clayton Act antitrust reviews, (Jan 21, 2016)

By Michael Menzhuber, J.D., LL.M.

The FTC has revised the monetary thresholds that determine whether companies are required to notify federal antitrust authorities about a transaction under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Improvements Act, the agency announced today. The FTC also announced revisions to the monetary 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 2016, the size-of-transaction threshold for reporting proposed mergers and acquisitions subject to enforcement under Section 7A of the Clayton Act will increase from $76.3 million to $78.2 million. The revised thresholds 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 2016 are $31,841,000 for Section 8(a)(1) and $3,184,100 for Section 8(a)(2)(A). The figures for Section 8 become effectively immediately upon publication of the notice in the Federal Register.

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