Markets Wired

FTC Approves FY 2010 HSR Premerger Notification Report Showing 63 Percent Increase in Filings Compared to FY 2009

The Federal Trade Commission, with the concurrence of the Department of Justice’s Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, released the agencies’ fiscal year 2010 report on their review of mergers under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Premerger Notification Program. The report shows that the number of transactions reported to the agencies grew by 63 percent – from 716 in FY 2009 to 1,166 in FY 2010 – after two consecutive years in which the number of transactions reported to the agencies declined.

The 33rd Hart-Scott-Rodino Annual Report (Fiscal Year 2010) summarizes enforcement activities between October 1, 2009 and September 30, 2010, and reviews the agencies’ activities to ensure that companies are complying with the premerger notification rules and procedures. A statistical table in the report presents data profiling HSR filings and enforcement interest during FY 2010. Appendices provide a summary of transactions for fiscal years 2001-2010, and the number of transactions reported as filings by month during this time.

The report also describes the HSR Act and provides an overview of how the federal antitrust agencies have implemented the Act since it was enacted in the late 1970s. It concludes with an assessment that, as Congress intended, the HSR Act continues to give the government the opportunity to investigate and challenge mergers that are likely to harm consumers before the injury occurs. The Commission vote to issue the report was 5-0. It is available on the FTC’s website and as a link to this press release. (FTC File No. P110014)

FTC Approves Final Order Settling Charges that Keystone’s $245 Million Purchase of Compagnie de Saint-Gobain was Anticompetitive

Following a public comment period, the Federal Trade Commission approved a final settlement Order preserving competition in the North American market for alumina wear tile. The Order imposes conditions on Keystone Holdings, LLC and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain related to Keystone’s planned acquisition of Saint-Gobain’s advanced ceramics business.

Alumina wear tile protects industrial equipment from abrasive wear. Equipment protected by the tiles includes chutes, hoppers, and pipes used to carry coal and ash in coal-fired power plants; silos and equipment used in the cement and asphalt industry; and mineral processing equipment. The final settlement Order will ensure that Saint-Gobain’s North American alumina tile business will remain in place and continue to compete in the market. Under the Order, Keystone and Saint-Gobain modified their transaction to allow Saint-Gobain to retain its Latrobe, Pennsylvania facility, which manufactures most of the alumina wear tile Saint-Gobain sells in the United States. Keystone has agreed to notify the FTC before acquiring, and Saint-Gobain before selling, certain alumina wear tile assets in the future.

The Commission vote approving the final Order was 5-0. The Order can be found on the FTC’s website and as a link to this press release. (FTC File No. 101-0175; the staff contact is Victoria Lippincott, Bureau of Competition, 202-326-2983; see press release dated December 29, 2010).

Copies of the document mentioned in this release are available from the FTC’s website at http://www.ftc.gov and from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580. Call toll-free: 1-877-FTC-HELP.

(FYI 6.2011.wpd)