On June 9, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a memorandum establishing long-awaited guidance for the investigation and enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).[1] The guidance was a direct result of President Trump’s February 10 Executive Order, signed on February 10, 2025, which directed the DOJ not to initiate new FCPA investigations or enforcement actions for 180 days, except where specifically authorized by senior DOJ officials.[2] The Order also required a detailed review of all ongoing FCPA matters and the issuance of updated enforcement guidelines. The President’s stated objectives were to prevent the FCPA from being “stretched beyond proper bounds,” to avoid enforcement that could harm U.S. economic competitiveness, and to ensure that FCPA actions do not undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.[3]

The new guidelines, styled as a memorandum from the Deputy Attorney General to the attorney currently in charge of the DOJ Criminal Division (the “Memorandum”), signal a significant recalibration of FCPA enforcement priorities, with a focus on serious misconduct that can be attributed to specific individuals, national security threats, and conduct linked to transnational criminal organizations, while also seeking to limit undue burdens on U.S. companies operating abroad. Perhaps surprisingly, considering the doomsday scenarios that some anticorruption advocates had predicted, the new guidance signals a commitment to further FCPA enforcement, albeit with a narrower focus.

Continue Reading DOJ Issues New FCPA Enforcement Guidelines
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On June 9, 2025, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed into law Senate Bill 951 (the “2025 Act”).  Unlike California’s AB 3129, which was vetoed by California Governor Gavin Newsom in September 2024, the passage of the 2025 Act is the culmination of the state’s efforts to strengthen controls on health care transactions involving management services organizations (“MSOs”) and private equity investors.  The 2025 Act implements significant changes to Oregon’s existing corporate practice of medicine (“CPOM”) doctrine and materially affects existing arrangements between MSOs and the professional medical entities that they manage.  Significantly, the 2025 Act prohibits several material aspects of health care transactions that are standard in states that restrict CPOM. 

Continue Reading New Oregon Law Imposes Significant Corporate Practice of Medicine Restrictions

In an eight-page Statement joined by the two other sitting Commissioners, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson on May 30, 2025 explained his reasoning for accepting a divestiture remedy proposed by Synopsis, Inc. and Ansys, Inc. to resolve concerns stemming from their pending merger.  The parties to the merger had proposed divesting standalone or discrete business units in three relevant markets to resolve FTC concerns.  The Statement, while promising a forthcoming policy statement on merger remedies, set forth a clear viewpoint about the role of remedies in merger antitrust enforcement and drew a stark contrast with the stance carved out by the Biden FTC, which had expressed a general hostility to remedies and a preference for litigation. 

The Statement is notable for a couple of reasons.  First, it recognizes the key role acquisitions play in fostering innovation.  The Biden FTC expressed antipathy toward acquisitions, particularly by private equity.  Chair Ferguson’s Statement, in contrast, expressly credits the capital from acquisitions as providing “fuel for the fires of innovation,” which in turn spurs the development of “new technology and economic growth.”  Chair Ferguson appears to be sending a clear signal that the days of FTC’s general skepticism of acquisitions—particularly of smaller startups by private equity or larger, more established companies—are over.

Continue Reading FTC Chair Issues Statement on Merger Remedies
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On May 12, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order titled “Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients.”  This executive order aims to lower the cost of prescription drugs for U.S. consumers by requiring drug manufacturers to sell their products to consumers at a most-favored-nation price through direct-to-consumer purchasing programs facilitated by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (“HHS”).  Under the proposed most-favored-nation approach, consumers would pay no more than the lowest price for a prescription drug sold by a drug manufacturer to customers in comparably developed nations. 

The executive order directs HHS to take steps to implement a most-favored-nation approach to prescription drug pricing.  This includes communicating most-favored-nation price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers within 30 days.  If “significant progress” towards implementing the most-favored-nation approach is not made, the executive order directs HHS to, among other things, propose a rulemaking plan to impose most-favored-nation pricing.  The executive order does not specify a timeline for measuring “significant progress.” The executive order states that if drug manufacturers fail to implement most-favored-nation pricing, the Administration will take “additional aggressive action.”

Continue Reading Trump Administration Issues Executive Order Aimed At Lowering Prescription Drug Pricing
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Since assuming office on January 20, 2025, President Trump’s Administration, together with various federal agencies and Congress, have initiated several actions that have the potential to reshape the digital asset industry within the United States. Marking a notable departure from the prior administration’s approach, the Trump administration’s policy initiatives combine a de-emphasis on regulation by enforcement with greater reliance on deregulation and industry input, all with a view toward positioning the United States as the global leader in digital assets and digital financial technology. The discussion below is a high-level overview of various executive branch, regulatory, and legislative developments in the digital asset and cryptocurrency space during the last three months. While too early to say what impact the Trump Administration’s initiatives will have, they signal a strong willingness to support the digital asset industry.

Continue Reading The Trump Administration’s Reshaping of Digital Asset Policy
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Recent actions by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) highlight a sharp escalation in agency antitrust enforcement, particularly for dominant technology platforms. The DOJ has brought two significant cases against Google—one concerning its dominance in search, and another targeting its control over digital advertising technologies. At the same time, the FTC is pursuing a case against Meta, focusing on its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Continue Reading Antitrust Pressure Mounts for Dominant Tech Platforms

On Monday, April 14, 2025, a federal jury convicted Eduardo “Eddie” Lopez of conspiring to fix the wages for home healthcare nurses in Las Vegas and for fraudulently failing to disclose the criminal antitrust investigation during the sale of his home healthcare staffing company.  According to the complaint and trial evidence, Lopez, who oversaw recruitment, hiring, retention and assignments of nurses for three home health agencies, conspired with unnamed conspirators in a series of meetings and communications to artificially cap the wages of Las Vegas-area nurses between March 2016 and May 2019.  He will be sentenced on July 14 for one count of participating in a wage-fixing conspiracy and five counts of wire fraud. 

Continue Reading DOJ Notches First Trial Win in Wage-Fixing Case

On April 10, 2025, the Senate confirmed Mark Meador to serve as the third Republican on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in a 50-46 party line vote. Commissioner Meador takes his seat on a Commission now comprised of three Republicans and no Democrats since President Trump fired Democratic Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya in March. The fired commissioners are challenging their dismissals in court, alleging that President Trump does not have the power to remove sitting commissioners without cause.

Prior to his confirmation, Commissioner Meador was in private practice and was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation Tech Policy Center. Before that, he served as Deputy Chief Counsel for Antitrust and Competition Policy for Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), and served in the first Trump Administration as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.

There is a lot of discussion regarding U.S. tariffs at this time, and it is still too soon to tell what the ultimate U.S. tariff landscape will look like. For now, however, it is important to recall that certain basic import rules and caveats still apply.

Continue Reading Remember Basic Import Rules when Calculating Tariffs

In the first major initiative of the Antitrust Division within the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice, the DOJ announced on March 28, 2025 the creation of a task force to “advocate for the elimination of anticompetitive state and federal laws and regulations that undermine free market competition and harm consumers, workers, and businesses.” Citing President Trump’s Executive Order 14219, which mandated such reviews, the DOJ’s announcement called out for special scrutiny the “regulatory capture” of agencies by “special interests and big businesses” in five economic sectors:  housing, transportation, food and agriculture, healthcare, and energy.

Continue Reading U.S. Department of Justice Launches “Anticompetitive Regulations” Task Force