United States: Cartels, Monopolies

The Department of Justice Antitrust Division has intensified its prosecution of government contractors through its Procurement Collusion Strike Force, which has opened nearly 200 investigations since 2019. With a new whistleblower program generating a surge of leads and recent guilty pleas in bid-rigging schemes involving military contracts, contractors face heightened scrutiny and significant risks including jail time, debarment, and civil litigation.

If you are an executive or general counsel of any business, whether a startup or Fortune 100, you will at some point hire and interact with outside antitrust counsel.

The Dechert Antitrust Merger Investigation Timing Tracker (DAMITT) reveals a sustained decline in U.S. and EU merger enforcement activity through Q1 2026, with only four significant U.S. investigations concluded and a record-low single EU case. How are the Trump administration's policy shifts—including the revival of settlements and reinstatement of early terminations—reshaping the merger review landscape, and what do these trends signal for deal timelines and enforcement strategies?

2025 saw a plethora of dawn raids as well as authorities reaching for enhanced detection tools and investigative powers.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche stated in accompanying remarks that the CEP is intended to "create[] incentives for companies to come forward" because companies will "know that, across the Department, they will be rewarded when they self-disclose wrongdoing, cooperate with our investigations, and remediate the misconduct."

This section presents a series of visual snapshots illustrating how antitrust enforcement fines were distributed across Europe, APAC, and the Americas in 2025. The analysis highlights notable regional differences in enforcement priorities and identifies the types of conduct most commonly penalised by competition authorities in each jurisdiction.

On Tuesday, November 18, a federal judge ruled that Meta (formerly Facebook) did not engage in prohibited anticompetitive behavior by purchasing Instagram and WhatsApp.

Yesterday, FinCEN announced an ongoing enforcement initiative against more than 100 money services businesses operating along the Southwest U.S. border.

Across several recent cases, antitrust enforcers in Europe have demonstrated an increased willingness to consider novel solutions to close down investigations through commitments (without finding any illegal behaviour or imposing penalties), but still being able to point to real wins to consumers from their interventions...