LabCorp's acquisition of Westcliff Medical Laboratories in 2010 is the first transaction in which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) went to court seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction since the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines were issued. After the District Court denied the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction and the Court of Appeals denied the FTC's request for a temporary stay, the FTC dismissed its appeal and complaint and closed its investigation of the matter.

To examine this matter, NERA hosted a breakfast seminar in New York City on 1 June 2011. NERA Senior Vice President Dr. Lawrence Wu was joined by J. Robert Robertson, Partner at Hogan Lovells LLP. The panelists gave their views on the antitrust lessons learned from the LabCorp litigation and other recent merger cases. Specifically, the panelists addressed the following questions:

• The Guidelines deemphasize market definition, but what are judges thinking?
• The Guidelines move away from "structural presumptions," but is that still true when the FTC goes to court?
• The Guidelines focus on empirical analyses of competitive effects, but what types of evidence are the courts finding persuasive?