WEBVTT - New Inquiry into Tech Deals That Went Under the Radar 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:05.360 This is Bloomberg Law with June Grassoe from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:09.119 The FTC has been criticized for being overly friendly to 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.840 large businesses in recent years. Over the last decade, we've 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:17.360 heard about some enormous acquisitions by the tech giants, for example, 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:24.760 facebook purchase of WhatsApp, Microsoft's deal for linked In, Amazon's 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.280 acquisition of Whole Foods. But there are also a huge 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:32.760 number of tiny deals, deals too small to draw the 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:37.800 FTC's attention. Until now, the FTC appears to be reconsidering 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.920 and wondering whether it missed troubling signs in the wave 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.640 of smaller acquisitions by the tech giants. Joining me is 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:49.360 Jennifer Ree, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior litigation analyst. Jen would you 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.720 say the FTC has taken a permissive approach to the 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.920 tech industry at this point, June? While I believe that 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.040 there are probably antitrust thinkers out there that actually do 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.560 believe the ft C has been two lacks for many 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.000 years on the tech industry, I don't really know that 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:05.840 we can say that. I mean, in fact, they have 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:09.319 investigated tech company deals. You know, they have looked closely 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.000 at these deals and considered whether or not these deals 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.679 should close and in fact challenged a tech deal in 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.360 the past that was an already consummated deal in one 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:19.400 in that case. So you know, we're not paying as 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.760 much attention to what they have done in the past. Instead, 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.040 what we're thinking about is what we view as too 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.200 much dominance at this point for tech companies. But we're 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.679 not really looking at what the FTC has done in 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.839 the past that has in some cases curved tech dominance. 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:40.440 So now the FTC is asking for new information from Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.039 and Microsoft. What kind of information? What are they looking for? 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.440 This investigation is under the FTC X Section six B, 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.120 and what it is. It allows the FTC to go 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.600 in and seek a broad range of documents, data and 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.240 information from these companies even if they don't really have 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:58.960 an ultimate enforcement goal. So in other words, even if 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:03.200 they don't necessarily suspect that there has been anti competitive activity, 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.520 they can go in and kind of conduct this fishing expedition. Now, 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.520 what they're looking for here is information on past deals 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.800 that these companies have done that fell underneath the filing 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.400 thresholds of the Heart's got Redino Act. So, in other words, 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.000 they weren't filed with the government because the companies didn't 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.040 have to file with the government and they were free 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.640 to just go ahead and close right away without giving 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.240 the government, FTC or d o J time to review 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:27.959 the deal. So the FTC wants to know about ten 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.359 years worth of these sorts of deals by the companies 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:33.920 that you named, and they're trying to understand whether or 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.720 not they need to change the HSR rules or do 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.520 something that might capture small deals that might have been 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.680 anti competitive. And in fact, if they believe they find 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.480 evidence of wrongdoing, which they could because this will be 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:50.040 a very broad, sweeping investigation, they can then go back 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:54.160 and start an enforcement action targeting specific deals that could 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.960 be two, three, four or five years old. Explain some 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.560 of the different reasons why tech companies might buy startups 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.359 what they're looking for. There are any number of reasons, 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:06.919 and obviously what the FTC is wondering as are those 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.919 reasons anti competitive? In other words, is there really no 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.160 reason to buy this startup company other than to eliminate 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.400 threatening competition in a certain segment. So you know this 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.120 is something the FTC will be looking for. Now. The 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:22.200 other thing they may be thinking about is whether or 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.600 not some of these acquisitions were done just in order 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.640 to gain the data that the startup company is able 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.240 to collect. I think sometimes when you think about the 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.680 Google Ways acquisition that the News has targeted as something 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.080 the FTC may be looking at the question, maybe was 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:39.960 this because of the user data that Ways was able 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.800 to collect from this platform, which was a user generated platform. 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.320 The other reason sometimes startups are acquired, especially by tech 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.360 is to gain intellectual property that that startup might have, 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.640 or even the talent the employees that the company may have. 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.880 Senator Elizabeth Warren, of course, a Democrat running for president, 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.760 has described a kill zone. What is she talking about now? 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.120 I believe what she's talking about is also what's called 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.720 killer acquisitions that the idea is sort of just to catch, buy, 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.160 and kill off the company. This is one of those 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:13.440 acquisitions that would be for no other reason but to 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:17.560 eliminate competition. It is not what the Facebook, Instagram or 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.760 the Facebook What's App acquisitions were, because of course Facebook 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:25.279 put assets and capital into those acquisitions and continue those businesses, 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:27.760 so those were not sort of a catch and kill 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.440 type acquisition. But it doesn't necessarily mean that they automatically 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:35.480 become pro competitive and not anti competitive. But what Elizabeth 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:39.159 Warren is talking about are these startups that could potentially 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.640 rise up. Their nascent competitors could rise up and threaten 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:47.400 businesses that Google, Amazon, Facebook, etcetera. Are already in and 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:49.520 the purpose for the deal is just to buy them 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.440 kill off the competition. The FDC chairman described the new 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.760 review of these smaller mergers as a policy project, not 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.680 a law enforcement action. What's the difference, you know. The 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:06.279 difference really is that when an enforcement type investigation is opened, 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.920 it usually is because of complaints that have come in 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.400 or something that the FTC has seen that suggests it's 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:16.279 possible wrongdoing has occurred or is occurring. This doesn't have 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:19.840 any necessary suspicion of wrongdoing. This is just a fact 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.240 finding mission, so it sits on the policy side rather 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.480 than on the enforcement side. It could lead to enforcement 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.200 actions because of course they're going to be gathering documents, 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.440 and if those documents that they review suggest that wrongdoing 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.800 has occurred, this could then lead to an investigation, which 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.760 is under the enforcement arm. I've been talking with Jennifer 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:43.320 Ree Bloomberg Intelligence senior litigation analysts about the FTC going 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.040 back to review acquisitions by tech companies that they once 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.200 thought were too small to bother with. So this review 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.320 could lead to enforcement actions. But aren't these small companies 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:58.359 by now already integrated into the tech giants. Could the 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:02.400 FTC unwind them at this point? This would be fact based, 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.880 It would be deal by deal. In some cases, yes, 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:09.279 assets are gone, they're completely merged. Really you can't unscramble 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:11.960 the eggs in certain cases. But in other cases, the 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.720 acquired entity maybe operating as a separate subsidiary. It might 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.760 be a situation where it's easier to carve off those assets. 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.120 And in addition, one of the things the FTC has 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.960 done in the past and d o J is required 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.039 the company to go into the company and create a 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.440 separate division where they've actually integrated assets, to go in 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.880 and separate out out those assets, create a separate division, 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.720 incentivize the employees to go with the division, and then 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.040 sell off that division. I can't imagine what the industry's 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:42.960 reaction has been to this, because it sounds like it's 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.600 going to require a lot from them initially and perhaps 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.039 lead to more problems down the road. That is absolutely right. 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.880 You know, the legal departments of these big tech companies, 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.159 the five you mentioned earlier. Have to be so busy 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.480 right now because this is just one of many investigations 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.120 that is ongoing right now. You know, you have Congress 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.760 looking into these companies. We know that the Department of 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.000 Justice is looking at Google, looking at Apple and possibly 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.640 other tech companies. We know the FTCs investigating Facebook, We 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.600 know the European Commission has been looking at these companies. 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.200 So they are very busy, and you know, there is 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.920 a lot of sort of add on here in terms 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.760 of polling documents and probably some repetitive documents, the same 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.160 documents that respond to both investigations. So they are very busy. 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:30.360 And certainly every time a company turns over a lot 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:35.000 of their ordinary course business documents, including texts and emails, 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.600 you know, notes of telephone conversations, they add risk because 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:42.600 you could have the greatest compliance program internally in the world, 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:45.640 but you still don't necessarily have control over the things 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.360 that your vast number of employees are saying and doing 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:50.800 in the everyday running of the business, and you're turning 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.280 all of that over to the government. Does the FTC 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.560 have the resources and the people to go through all 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.600 the information that's going to be coming from these huge companies. 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.440 You know, the FTC has always been, in my experience, 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.840 very good at doing a lot with limited resources. The 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.160 FTC themselves have said to Congress they need more resources 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.240 in order to do what they're doing and to sort 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.560 of tackle the new technological economy that we're in right now. 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.160 They are up against the big legal teams that these 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.240 companies hire and can afford to hire, so it is 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.840 very difficult for them. They would probably benefit from more resources, 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.000 but I also wouldn't doubt that the FTC can do 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.040 the job that they need to do with the resources 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.920 they have. The FTC said it might use this review 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.400 to change rules about when deals need to be submitted 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.840 for review. What are the rules now? So the HSR 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.679 Act hearts guard Redino Acts sets out the thresholds for 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:47.800 when a deal needs to be notified, and it's actually 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.080 really quite complicated now. Most big law firms that have 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.000 an M and A practice have an HSR specialist. That 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.560 the only thing this lawyer does is every time a 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.680 deal comes in, they assess it to determine whether it 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.000 needs to be filed. Generally, deals that are worth less 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.760 than ninety three million right now don't need to be filed, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.000 and deals that are worth more than three seventy six 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.120 million must be filed. And in between deals some yes 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.680 and some know. It depends, and that threshold changes every year, 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:15.400 And there are a lot of exemptions, there are a 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.120 lot of safe harpers. So what the FTC might want 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.280 to look at when they collect these documents is an 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.080 understanding of the kinds of deals that are happening that 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.840 aren't falling within those thresholds, or that are fitting one 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.000 of those exemptions. And maybe what they want to do 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:29.840 is say, Hey, a lot of tech deals seem to 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.080 fall under exemption X, so let's get rid of exemption X. 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.360 That's the kind of thing they might be thinking. The 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.679 idea if they change the rules would be to ensnare 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.120 more deals require the filing, which then requires an automatic 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.520 waiting period before the companies can close. This move is 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:49.480 part of a broader reconsideration of US antitrust law that 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:54.880 focuses on in customer prices and consumer harm. So explain 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:59.040 where we are now with the way these things are judged, 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:04.200 and I wear looking at it again. Generally, when deals 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.280 are reviewed by the antitrust regulators, what they're looking for 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.840 is a deal that has the likelihood of substantially lessening 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:15.240 competition and could cause consumer harm. Consumer harm is usually 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:18.240 increased prices. This is the most obvious way consumers are 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.640 harmed harmed, but it has never been limited to justin 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.720 increase in prices. This could also be a decrease in output, 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.160 it could be reduction in quality, and it could be 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:31.760 in fact reduced innovation. The FTC recently has actually challenged 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.240 deals because not just an increase in prices, but a 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:40.040 reduction and innovation, particularly in the pharmaceutical area. These are 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.800 generally the bucket of consumer harms that are looked at 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.679 and and the idea is to be predictive. You know, 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.080 you can't say what's definitely going to happen when two 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.280 companies merge, and it's a very difficult determination, you know, 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.520 we saw what happened with T Mobile and Sprint. The States, 0:10:54.880 --> 0:10:57.920 many state ages believed that this was a deal that 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.680 was likely to have substantial anti compare out of effects, 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.880 but the Department of Justice, with a remedy didn't agree 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.440 um and a district court judge did not agree, deciding 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.240 that the deal could go forward and that the States 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.480 are hadn't shown that this would likely to be anti competitive, 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.080 and most judges will say, when they're looking at these 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.160 deals that are challenged by FTC or d o J, 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:20.320 you know, I need a crystal ball. How can I 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.199 predict the future of what will happen? So it's a 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.280 very difficult determination to make. What the d o J 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.240 and FTC do is use economic tools. They both have 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:32.760 groups of economists within the antitrust groups within each agency 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:36.199 that have a lot of complicated economic tools they use 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.080 to try to help make this prediction um And it's 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.440 difficult to do. And you know, sometimes the FTC is 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.960 wrong and d o J are wrong, and sometimes they're 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.280 absolutely right. Uh, you know, And it's a predictive judgment, 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.800 and they do the best that they can do. They 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.200 want to change what they're looking for. Do they want 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:59.360 to expand it away from consumer harm? Because sometimes tech 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:03.960 deals tech deals make things cheaper for consumers, that's right, 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.480 And I think that's been one of the conundrums, and 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.880 certainly right now, neither agency would want to do something 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:15.480 that somehow has this unintended consequence of harming consumers, such 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.840 as prices on Amazon going up, or a function that 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.240 we're used to having for free, like searching on Google 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.480 or using Facebook suddenly become go behind a paywall. They 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.600 do not want an unintended consequence like that. I think 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.680 what what the agencies are thinking about right now is 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.760 not necessarily looking at some other standard outside of consumer harm, 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:38.200 but understanding whether there are ways that consumers are harmed 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.680 that they haven't really thought about in the past, such 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.840 as via the collection of data. Um what does that 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.960 mean and how does this data driven economy that we 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.839 live in right now affect consumers and how could that 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.720 contribute to consumer harms in ways that perhaps they haven't 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.640 really been thinking about in the past. Does in fact 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:01.600 privacy protection constitute part of that consumer harm? If a 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.600 company that offers greater privacy protections is acquired by a 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.920 company that offers lowered privacy protections, could that be a 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.080 consumer harm because now the consumers that are more concerned 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:16.079 about their privacy protection lose the option of the search engine, 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.120 let's say, or the social media platform that did provide 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.200 greater privacy protections. This is something I think some people 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.680 appointed to with Instagram that when Instagram was independent, it 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:29.840 offered perhaps greater privacy protections than Facebook did, and once 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.480 acquired users lost that option. So I think that this 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:37.360 is more about thinking about new ways that consumers may 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.400 be harmed by tech companies that operate differently than most 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.120 of the companies did that the agencies were looking at 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.040 fifty years ago. Now I'm saying that that I think 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.440 this is what the agencies are thinking about. There's certainly 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:54.120 advocates out there for looking at things like how deals 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:58.600 affect employment, how deals affect wages, which would be going 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.960 beyond the kinds of consumer harms that the agencies think about. Now, 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:06.640 there's been criticism of the FTC on a number of grounds, 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.960 one being that the number of criminal antitrust cases filed 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:12.960 in twenty team where at the lowest levels in almost 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.839 thirty years, And you had one senator Missouri Senator Josh 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.800 Holly saying the FTC should just be part of the 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:24.160 Justice Department, rolled into the Justice Department. So what's your 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:28.480 take on whether the FTC has not really done the 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.280 kinds of things that they should have in the past. 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.720 On the criminal side of it, the FTC doesn't have 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:39.040 jurisdiction to pursue companies under the antitrust laws. Under the 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.080 criminal side of the anti dust laws, only the Department 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.520 of Justice does, and I think in some respects um 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.520 those statistics maybe a little bit misleading, only because there 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:53.120 was this raft of criminal prosecutions by the Department of 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:58.040 Justice following the banking crisis of two thousand. You had 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:01.200 a lot of rate rigging and bench mark rigging conduct 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.440 and cartel type conduct by the banks that the Department 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:06.920 of Justice went after in two thousand eleven and on 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.560 with a libor scandal. We all recall the for an 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.200 exchange rigging scandal you had is to fix um credit 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:18.240 default swaps conduct, and and you had this uptick in 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.680 the criminal prosecutions. And so now some of those cases 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.240 are wrapping up, and I do actually think the Department 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.280 of Justice maybe on the verge of filing more criminal 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.640 charges in the generic drug price fixing probe. And the 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.280 News has reported that the Department of Justice maybe also 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:39.160 going after some companies no poaching agreements criminally, in other words, 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:43.080 agreeing not to recruit each other's employees, which is sort 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:45.480 of a price fixing. It's a wage fixing, and it 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.600 affects those employees and the ability to get raises and 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.960 increased salaries. So we may be seeing more coming out 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.840 of the Department of Justice on criminal matters with respect 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.040 to the FTC. You know, I think it's really hard 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.000 to go back and criticize the FTC for not doing enough. 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:04.640 We have had a rapidly changing economy over the last 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:08.840 ten years, particularly in tech, and tech innovations move very 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.680 very quickly. The FTC. I believe we tend to overlook 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.080 much of what the FTC does in terms of blocking deals. 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.040 If you look at the statistics, they do not show 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.280 that there's any decreased level of interest activity coming out 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.160 of the FTC as compared to ten years ago. They 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.000 continued to do a lot of work, and I think 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.280 they continue to do what they can do given the 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:33.080 resources that they have. That's Jennifer Ree, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:36.560 Litigation Analyst, and that's it for this edition of Bloomberg Law. 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.880 I'm June Glass. Thanks so much for listening, and remember 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.240 to tunit to the Bloomberg Law Show tomorrow night at 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.800 ten p m. Eastern right here on Bloomberg Radio.