2024 Antitrust & Competition Year in Review and Trends for 2025
January 2025
The past year marked the culmination of the Biden antitrust era. Under assertive leadership, the Federal Trade Commission and the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division adopted a more aggressive stance toward perceived anticompetitive practices. Agency leaders pursued increasingly complex and less traditional theories of harm in both merger and conduct cases. On the transactional front, agency scrutiny expanded beyond conventional horizontal mergers to encompass nonhorizontal and nascent competition theories of harm as well as a new emphasis on the effect of mergers on labor markets. On the conduct front, enforcers grappled with dynamic markets alleging harms to innovation as opposed to more traditional price effects.
In response to this environment, private litigants have adopted more assertive tactics and likewise tested the boundaries of antitrust law. They brought claims involving emerging issues such as algorithmic pricing and data sharing, frequently building on the theories advanced by regulators.
Looking ahead to 2025, the Trump-Vance administration may scale back some of the Biden-Harris administration’s more aggressive enforcement strategies. Yet President-elect Trump’s recent antitrust appointments also signal that scrutiny is likely to continue. In contrast to the Biden administration, however, businesses may find greater deal close certainty and a renewed willingness to resolve issues through negotiated remedies. Overall, companies can expect a climate where critical decisions on mergers, conduct, and compliance will be shaped by the new administration’s enforcement priorities and potentially evolving standards, but should also keep in mind the lessons learned from court decisions in 2024.