Federal Trade Commission v. Steris Corporation: High Barriers to Proving Likely Anticompetitive Effects from Loss of Future Competition

It has been more than 50 years since the Supreme Court first deliberated over the potential competition doctrine in United States v. Penn-Olin Chemical Co., where the Court recognized that Section 7 of the Clayton Act may be violated based on that theory of competitive harm. While the Court generally recognized the potential competition doctrine in Penn-Olin, it did not distinguish between the present and future effects on competition. This key distinction underlies two distinct theories of harm that comprise the potential competition doctrine – “perceived potential competition” and “actual potential competition.”

Read more in The Threshold: Newsletter of the Mergers & Acquisitions Committee, Volume XVI, Number 2, Spring 2016.

Sharon Connaughton

Jacqueline Grise