Competitor Collaborations During COVID-19

Antitrust regulators worldwide have had to adopt novel strategies to address the emergency need for collaboration within certain industries to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United States, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have issued guidance to address acceptable forms of “procompetitive collaboration” to help respond to the pandemic. As a part of this guidance, the antitrust agencies pledged to expedite their individual guidance programs, FTC’s advisory opinion program and DOJ’s business review program. While businesses should not view the new guidance as relaxing or changing antitrust enforcement policies, they still may be able to take advantage of this increase in the usage of the business review programs to better their understanding of acceptable conduct and mitigate risk that stems from potential future collaborations.

By Karen Hoffman Lent & Mike Keskey¹

Antitrust regulators worldwide have had to adopt novel strategies to address the emergency need for collaboration within certain industries to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. As issues arose involving, for example, the timely distribution of medicine, or further downstream, business closures delayed critical supply chains, COVID-19 changed the way most industries must do business. As a result, many businesses have found that they can work together to more effectively respond to the pandemic. Antitrust enforcers recognized this need for collaboration and ha