Antitrust in a Time of Trade War

• Pages: 4-11
• Date: 01 July 2025
• Published date: 01 July 2025
• Author: John D. Harkrider,Craig D. Minerva

4 · ANTITRUST

COVER STORIES

In sum, it has become less predictable which jurisdiction

will be the marginal enforcer in a global deal, a dynamic that

will produce a more multipolar antitrust landscape.

Looking Back Before Looking Forward

During the prior era, global deals with substantive issues

risked triggering prolonged regulatory timelines that led

to increased completion risk. A Phase 2 CMA or EC pro-

cess can itself take well over one year. But during the Biden

Administration, the U.S. antitrust authorities often allowed

these international processes to play out before litigating to

block a deal. While this consecutive enforcement tactic was

not new,7 the time pressure it caused was amplified by sev-

eral factors. First, during the Biden Administration, both

the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department

of Justice (DOJ) were generally opposed to accepting rem-

edies for deals that they believed were anticompetitive.8

This policy meant that deals that would otherwise have

been remedied in the United States were held up waiting

for enforcement decisions from other jurisdictions. Second,

the antitrust authorities during the Biden Administration

generally made deal-making more difficult through a vari-

ety of process tactics. These allegedly included coordinat-

ing with foreign antitrust authorities to prolong merger

reviews.9 Third, during this period the UK separated from

the EU, and the CMA began reviewing more global mergers

and taking a more interventionist stance. This meant more

instances of prolonged merger reviews and blocked deals

that might otherwise have been settled quicker or cleared.

In a scenario in which the U.S. antitrust authority waits

for a CMA or EC Phase 2 process to complete before ini-

tiating litigation, U.S. litigation may only begin as much

as perhaps 15 months after the deal is signed. Factoring in

about six months for a district court decision, the time-

line stretches to nearly two years. Many deals cannot last

this long because of changing financing dynamics, con-

cern about deterioration of the target (e.g. customers

and/or employees choosing to move on), and other factors.

The antitrust authorities fully understand the time pres-

sure that long merger reviews impose upon deals, and for

decision-makers with a general bias against deal-making,

the collapse of a deal due to a long merger review period,

without the government needing to prevail in court, was

viewed as a positive outcome.

Antitrust in a Time of Trade War

BY JOHN D. HARKRIDER AND CRAIG D. MINERVA

Introduction

Change happens gradually and then suddenly. The same is

true of global antitrust merger control. From 2020–2024,

many global deals faced completion risk from hyper- aggressive

antitrust enforcement in the United States and the United

Kingdom. Under former Executive Vice President Margrethe

Vestager, the European Commission (EC) continued robust

enforcement, but maintained an openness to remedies, and

otherwise a generally predictable approach. This approach

often made the EC the most reasonable antitrust authority on

the global stage. Meanwhile, China’s State Administration for

Market Regulation (SAMR) was often a wildcard enforcer,

imposing deal timing risk and inventive remedies.

Much has changed and continues to change. Changes

come from a combination of forces both within and among

political systems. In a groundbreaking development in Jan-

uary 2025, the UK Labour government replaced the Chair

of the CMA because his hyper-interventionist enforcement

posture was deemed incompatible with the Labour govern-

ment’s pro-growth agenda.1 Labour Trade Minister Jonathan

Reynolds tasked the CMA with “supercharging the econ-

omy with pro-business decisions that will drive prosperity

and growth, putting more money in people’s pockets.”2

In the second Trump Administration, while the top anti-

trust officials vow to continue vigorous antitrust enforce-

ment, they also have returned to accepting remedies and

face significant resource constraints, including a projected

20 percent cut to FTC staff.3 The European Commission, at

the end of 2024, received the Draghi report on EU Compet-

itiveness, which recommended a more permissive approach

to consolidation in strategic sectors.4 Meanwhile in Europe,

a new Commissioner is in charge of the Directorate- General

for Competition (DG Comp), Executive Vice President

Teresa Ribera, though she is simultaneously responsible for

another major undertaking: the European Green Deal.5 And

the pending trade war between the United States and China

raises questions about whether antitrust enforcement may

be used as a weapon in a broader geopolitical conflict.6

John D. Harkrider and Craig D. Minerva are partners at Axinn, Veltrop

& Harkrider LLP. The authors thank Cole Vick and Samer R. Saffarini

for their contributions to this article. The views states herein are the

authors’ only.