The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it has notified the Department of Justice, Department of Labor, and the National Labor Relations Board that it will withdraw from an August 28, 2024 Memorandum of Understanding that aimed to strengthen competition by better coordinating information used by antitrust agencies to evaluate potential labor market impacts of mergers and acquisitions. The FTC did not announce why it was withdrawing from the MOU around a month after the MOU was first announced. The MOU set out several methods for the agencies to obtain and share relevant information on labor issues during merger investigations, including: (1) soliciting information from relevant worker stakeholders and organizations; (2) seeking the production of information and data related to labor markets in voluntary access letters and Requests for Additional Information and Documentary Material (Second Requests) issued to filing entities; (3) searching publicly available sources of information made available by DOL, including worker and employer statistical data, as well as information on labor standards enforcement activity by the Wage and Hour Division and Occupational Safety and Health Administration; and (4) searching publicly available sources of information made available by the NLRB, including enforcement and representation cases involving the entities at issue, and/or others in the relevant labor markets.
