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Kate Mitchell-Tombras

Kate Mitchell-Tombras represents clients in complex antitrust and commercial legal matters, including litigation, government investigations, and mergers and acquisitions. Kate also advises clients on competition issues, such as antitrust compliance, internal investigations, and responding to Second Requests.

From 2010-2014, Kate was a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. While at the Antitrust Division, Kate successfully represented the United States at trial in its challenge of a conspiracy concerning the pricing of e-books and its challenge of a provision in agreements between a credit card network and merchants. Kate also served as chief of staff of the team responsible for the Antitrust Division’s challenge to the merger between U.S. Airways and American Airlines, which ultimately concluded in a settlement. In recognition of her contribution to the e-books and airlines litigations, Kate received the Antitrust Division’s Award of Distinction.

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On July 19, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (collectively, “the Agencies”) issued a new set of merger guidelines in draft form for public comment (the “Draft Guidelines”).  The Draft Guidelines, if adopted, will replace the Horizontal Merger Guidelines issued in 2010 and the Vertical Merger Guidelines issued in 2020 (the latter of which the FTC withdrew in September 2021).  The updates make significant changes to the guidelines, such as:

  • Lowering the thresholds for when the Agencies are likely to presume that horizontal mergers are illegal;
  • Including—for the first time—a presumption of illegality for certain vertical mergers;
  • Adding guidelines focused on serial acquisitions and acquisitions of potential competitors;
  • Introducing concepts related specifically to multi-sided “platforms”; and
  • Explicitly addressing the effects of transactions on labor markets for the first time.

Continue Reading U.S. Antitrust Agencies Propose Major Changes to Merger Guidelines

On June 27, 2023, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), with the concurrence of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) (together, “the Agencies”), issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (the “Notice”) that proposes extensive changes to the Hart-Scott-Rodino (“HSR”) Act premerger notification form and associated instructions, as well as to the rules implementing the Act. The proposed changes represent the most significant revisions to the requirements that HSR filing persons must satisfy in the nearly 50 years since the inception of the HSR notification process. Continue Reading FTC and DOJ Propose Sweeping Changes to the HSR Form