Antitrust merger review

Antitrust merger review in Trade and Geopolitical Risk is no longer a purely domestic compliance exercise. The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the European Commission Directorate-General for Competition have both signaled heightened scrutiny of cross-border deals with supply chain or dual-use technology components, and the Japan Fair Trade Commission has added its own parallel review timelines to transactions touching semiconductor and critical materials sectors. Compliance teams at multinationals are now coordinating filing strategies across three or more jurisdictions simultaneously, with geopolitical exposure factored into clearance risk assessments from day one.