Conference | Ignited by Tech, The Next Merger (Guidelines) Wave

Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan speaks at the 3rd annual Antitrust & Tech Conference co-hosted by The George Washington University Competition Law Center and Crowell & Moring.

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Former leading enforcers, academics, and practitioners explore how merger activity in digital markets has led to a call for increased merger enforcement and revisions to the horizontal and vertical merger guidelines in the US; how the guidelines and enforcement may change; and what this will mean in practice for companies engaging in transactions in all industries.

Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan appears on the 2nd panel: Prospects for Reform of the Merger Guidelines: Options and Implications.

The panel explores how prior transactions by big tech companies ignited the next wave of potential merger guidelines revisions. The panelists discuss how horizontal and vertical merger guidelines might be reformed given current priorities at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department, as well as the practical implications of such reform. They also discuss if the horizontal and vertical guidelines are equipped to handle today’s economy and if change is needed.

Finally, the panel also explore sthe challenges U.S. and global competition authorities face in prioritizing changed merger initiatives as well as the challenges companies may face as they engage in M&A.

Watch the full conference on Crowell & Moring’s website here.