Antitrust Division Civil Cases Filed, Fiscal Year 2019

New civil, non-merger cases the Division filed challenging anticompetitive conduct outside the merger context.

Civil non-merger antitrust cases — monopolization, exclusive-dealing, and other conduct claims brought outside the merger-review process — are the Division's tool for addressing anticompetitive conduct in ongoing business relationships rather than at the moment of a transaction, and the filed-case count in this category has tracked the Division's stated enforcement priorities closely, rising in periods of announced focus on platform competition, labor-market restraints (no-poach and wage-fixing agreements), or specific industry conduct.

Duration in civil non-merger matters is typically the longest in the Division's civil docket, because monopolization and exclusive-dealing claims require extensive market-definition and competitive-effects evidence, expert economic testimony, and often survive motion practice before reaching a negotiated resolution or trial — multi-year timelines are the norm rather than the exception, and a company under an active civil non-merger investigation should plan accordingly rather than assuming a fast resolution comparable to a merger review.

For insurers and funders evaluating exposure tied to a company's market conduct, civil non-merger cases carry a distinctive resolution-path risk: unlike merger challenges, which typically resolve through a defined transaction timeline (the parties either restructure the deal, abandon it, or litigate to a defined close-or-block outcome), conduct cases can result in ongoing behavioral remedies — conduct injunctions, mandated licensing, structural separation — that impose compliance obligations extending years past the resolution date itself, similar in character to the injunctive-relief tail seen in EPA enforcement.

Resolution paths for civil non-merger cases split between litigated judgments, which are more common here than in the merger context because conduct claims are harder to resolve through a clean divestiture, and negotiated consent decrees imposing behavioral remedies. Criterica Intelligence frames civil non-merger filings as the category most likely to generate a long post-resolution compliance tail, distinct from the transaction-bounded timeline of merger enforcement, for the companies, insurers, and funders pricing ongoing market-conduct risk.

Figures on this page are drawn from official agency publications, cited individually below, and reflect the agency’s own reporting as of the date shown for each figure. They are not Criterica Intelligence model outputs, are not predictions, and are not a measure of any party’s legal exposure or liability. Agencies periodically revise prior-year figures; where a revision is known, both figures are shown with their sources. This page does not constitute legal, investment, or compliance advice.