On September 16, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission and Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice released the 2018 Hart-Scott-Rodino Annual Report, which summarizes FTC and DOJ actions conducted under the HSR Act during fiscal year 2018 (October 1, 2017 to September 30, 2018). A couple of noteworthy statistics include:
- the number of HSR filings increased by 2.9% in 2018 (2,111 filings compared to 2,052 filings in 2017);
- the number of second requests by the agencies decreased by 11.8% in 2018 (45 second requests compared to 51 in 2017); and
- where second requests were issued, the percentage of transactions that were challenged increased in 2018 to 86.7% (39 of 45) compared to 80.4% in 2017 (41 of 51).