Committed Capital Sidecar | FTC’s New Prior Approval Policy: Impact on Risks and Deal Terms

“Committed Capital Sidecar” is a new, bite-sized feature within our Committed Capital podcast series which quickly covers a key development affecting the private equity industry.

The FTC recently announced that it would seek “Prior Approvals” in certain merger enforcement actions, including any mergers cleared with a divestiture and certain deals that parties abandon. Prior Approvals would subject merging parties to an FTC veto on future deals, thus impacting companies with a roll-up or platform strategy in a particular industry. In this episode of Sidecar, antitrust partners Craig Falls and Jim Fishkin describe how Prior Approvals work, when they would apply, how they change merging parties’ risks, and how parties might adjust purchase agreements in response.