Antitrust Lawyer Blog Commentary on Current Developments

Articles Tagged with halliburton

On July 12, 2016, ValueAct agreed to pay a record fine of $11 million to settle the Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s (“DOJ”) allegations that ValueAct violated the reporting requirements under of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act (“HSR Act”) by improperly relying on the “investment only” exemption.

HSR Exemption

The HSR Act imposes notification and waiting period requirements for transactions meeting certain size thresholds to ensure that such transactions undergo premerger antitrust review by the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission.  The HSR Act has a narrow exemption for acquisitions of less than 10 percent of a company’s outstanding voting securities if the acquisition is made “solely for the purposes of investment” and the purchaser has no intention of participating in the company’s business decisions.  In other words, if a person or company intends to be a passive investor and the investment in securities is less than 10 percent of a company’s outstanding securities, the exemption may apply.

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