Today, the Federal Trade Commission released a plan for dealing with a government shutdown that would occur if Congress fails to enact appropriations by a midnight deadline. A shutdown looked likely as budget talks appeared to have broken down early Friday morning.

As part of the FTC’s plan, the Commission’s Premerger Notification Office would remain open with very limited staff to accept new filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act (HSR Act). The Commission said that it has coordinated with the Department of Justice on how they will handle the HSR filings. The Justice Department Antitrust Division’s Premerger Notification Unit will also remain open with limited s [...]

Information sharing between merging parties is a crucial part of pre-merger due diligence, yet courts have rarely weighed in to clarify when, if ever, such information exchanges run afoul of the antitrust laws. On January 10, 2011, a federal appeals court spoke for the first time on the topic. In Omnicare, Inc. v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc., No. 09-1152, a three-judge panel on the Seventh Circuit found that two merging health insurance companies had not violated antitrust and consumer-protection laws by sharing “generalized and averaged high-level pricing data” before consummation of the merger.

The dispute arose out of contracts between the institutional pharmacy, Omnicare, and two health ins [...]