Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, VITAL BRIEFING: Antitrust agencies to continue accepting merger filings during shutdown, but many other services to go offline, (Oct 1, 2025)

By Jeffrey May, J.D.

Criminal cases will continue to move forward, but extensions will likely be sought for most civil matters at the FTC and Antitrust Division.

Operations at the FTC and Department of Justice Antitrust Division will be scaled back as a result of the federal government shut down on October 1. Federal lawmakers were unable to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government. However, the lights will not go out completely at the antitrust agencies.

Merger filings. Premerger notification filings will continue to be accepted by the agencies during the shutdown. However, the hours operation for the FTC Premerger Notification Office (PNO) was reduced. The FTC issued a statement that its PNO staff will be available online only from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM ET each business day. In addition, the PNO will not respond to questions or requests for information or advice from outside parties and will not grant early termination of transactions. The agencies reminded filers that a filing must be received by 5:00 PM ET to be treated as filed on that business day. Waiting periods will be unaffected and run as usual, according to the statement. However, if the shutdown is lengthy, merger reviews would likely be delayed.

Ongoing litigation. With respect to ongoing litigation, the FTC has informed its attorneys to notify opposing parties and the courts of the government shutdown and to attempt to negotiate suspensions of dates for hearings and filings in nearly all cases. Where courts order cases to continue, the “Commission will comply with the court’s order to prevent the risk of immediate and substantial harm to the agency’s claims for relief.” As during past shutdowns, Part 3 administrative litigation proceedings will be stayed, and all deadlines will be extended by the number of days the agency is closed due to the funding lapse.

The agency identified 10 Bureau of Competition cases currently being litigated in either federal court or administrative litigation. The total number of Bureau of Consumer Protection cases being litigated in federal district courts and in administrative litigation was much higher, potentially up to approximately four dozen matters.

At the Antitrust Division, work will continue on criminal litigation. Civil litigation will be curtailed or postponed to the extent possible. Like FTC attorneys, Antitrust Division attorneys handling civil litigation will be expected to seek postponement of proceedings. This assumes that courts will remain open.

Because the work conducted by the Antitrust Division is funded from no-year appropriations, agency activities may continue during a lapse in appropriations as long as sufficient carryover funds remain and based upon the mission requirements of the Justice Department leadership. According to the Justice Department's Fiscal Year 2026 Contingency Plan, dated September 29, 2025, the Antitrust Division identified 457 critical positions (60% of the total 761 positions) needed during the shutdown.

Other services. The FTC announced that all agency events were postponed and would not be updated until the government re-opened. In addition, the following consumer-facing resources were to go offline:

• National Do Not Call Registry (For consumers)

• National Do Not Call Registry (For telemarketers)

• ReportFraud.ftc.gov (For consumers to report fraud)

• IdentityTheft.gov (For consumers reporting ID theft)

• Econsumer.gov (For consumers reporting international complaints)

During previous shutdowns, some information on the FTC’s website was not available. Website users received a shutdown message. However, the websites were functioning normally on the first day of the current shutdown.

MainStory: Antitrust ConsumerProtection AcquisitionsMergers AntitrustDivisionNews FederalTradeCommissionNews FedTracker