The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently held a closed session to hear an appeal from its own counsel of a decision handed down in February by an FTC administrative law judge (ALJ) rejecting the commission’s arguments that Altria’s 2020 acquisition of a 35% stake in e-cigarette maker Juul was anticompetitive and harms consumers. It is likely that the commission will side with the arguments it approved its own complaint counsel to develop, declaring itself the winner and Altria and Juul the losers.
This is not the first time the FTC has pursued this approach with merger cases and it likely won’t be the last. It is broadly expected the commission will hear a similar appeal of the ALJ decision handed down earlier this month rejecting the FTC’s challenge to DNA-sequencing provider Illumina’s proposed acquisition of Grail, a maker of multi-cancer early detection tests.
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