The Spring Meeting is the largest gathering of competition, consumer protection, and data privacy profes­sionals globally, with lawyers, academics, economists, enforcers, journalists, and students from around the world. During the 2026 Spring Meeting, Axinn associates attended thought leadership panels to capture key insights. Their report of the takeaways from four panels discussing trends in merger enforcement and remedies appears below. It covers the panels, “Enforcers Update: Mergers,” “Merger Review in a Trade War,” “Counseling Strategic Deals in Healthcare,” and “Staying in Tunney: The Remedies Tightrope.”

To read all the articles in the series, click here.

This year’s merger panels reflected a common theme: enforcement may be changing, but antitrust regulators continue to scrutinize deals by focusing on market realities. A more detailed update on the contours of merger review across different industries, contexts, and viewpoints is below.

Enforcers Update: Mergers

The “Enforcers Update: Mergers” panel of international merger enforcement leaders offered a timely discussion on how competition authorities are navigating an increasingly complex and uncertain global environment. Bringing together senior officials from Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and Australia, the conversation highlighted both shared challenges and jurisdiction-specific reforms shaping merger review today. 

A central theme was the growing relevance of geopolitical context and trade dynamics in merger review. Panelists noted that, although factors such as tariffs and trade dynamics can affect competitive conditions—particularly the significance of foreign competition and potential entry—enforcement remains grounded in fact-specific analysis. At the same time, uncertainty continues to shape how authorities assess transactions, particularly in sensitive or highly regulated sectors.

The panel also highlighted significant reforms across jurisdictions. Australia has moved to a more formalized merger review model, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) having approval rights. Mexico has strengthened its regime through lower notification thresholds, higher penalties, and expanded post-closing review powers. In 2025, the new National Antitrust Commission (CNA) replaced COFECE, with the aim of reducing duplicative competition-related functions across the Mexican government. The reform also shortens the timeline for the CNA to issue decisions on merger notifications from 60 to 30 days. Canada has introduced reforms focused on streamlining merger review, placing greater emphasis on structural indicators and market share effects. These changes bring Canada’s approach more closely in line with the framework reflected in the 2023 U.S. Merger Guidelines, particularly through the adoption of rebuttable structural presumptions based on concentration thresholds. In the European Union, merger control continues to evolve, with the European Commission refining its approach to theories of harm, including non-price and innovation effects, as well as the assessment of efficiencies (for which panelists emphasized the importance of early engagement by the merging parties).

Key Takeaways 

The discussion underscored several practical considerations for companies navigating merger review:

• Prepare for increased scrutiny of market structure and competitive effects, including both price and non-price dimensions.
• Account for geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty in transaction planning and risk assessment.
• Engage early with authorities, particularly where efficiencies or complex market dynamics are central to the transaction rationale.
• Monitor procedural reforms across jurisdictions, as changes to notification thresholds, review timelines, and enforcement powers may affect deal strategy.

Merger Review in a Trade War

Despite varying views across this panel, one major practical takeaway underscored the discussion: Although much of the substantive antitrust analysis will stay the same, tariff volatility and fluctuations in trade policy make a comprehensive, forward-looking, and globally minded strategy for merger review preparation critical for practitioners and companies alike. 

Key Takeaways 

• The geopolitical landscape is now a central deal variable. Panelists emphasized that fluctuating tariffs, “America First” policies, and geopolitical shifts are making deal planning more difficult for businesses and their advisors. That instability affects investment decisions, supply-chain planning, the timing of transactions, and the deal narratives companies craft for regulators. Still, the panel did not suggest that companies are abandoning deals wholesale. While some are choosing to take a “wait-and-see” approach to deals due to potential tariff exposure, others see the current environment as a favorable opportunity to get transformative deals through, particularly vertical ones that have a strong procompetitive rationale. 
• Tariff volatility could increase agency scrutiny of market definition. Panelists also pointed out that tariff volatility could result in greater agency scrutiny of merging parties’ claims that imports or foreign suppliers are meaningful competitive constraints. Parties should be prepared to show that these foreign alternatives remain realistic substitutes or potential entrants despite the prospect of tariffs. Panelists hypothesized that diversion data would remain more persuasive to agencies than predictions about where tariffs might land. One practical takeaway is that documents still matter—maybe even more so in these circumstances—and language minimizing the competitive impact of secondary suppliers or merely speculating about tariff impact on market participants could create challenges in the review process. 
• Contending with diverging jurisdictional enforcement requires a globally minded narrative. Looking internationally, the panel emphasized that, although regulators around the world tend to have similar views on competitive concerns, their areas of divergence are heightened by the current “trade war.” And due to expanded foreign filing requirements, a global deal narrative that works across jurisdictions is increasingly important. For example, deal rationales targeted at today’s U.S. Administration might create problems in another jurisdiction. An economist member of the panel posited that divergent enforcement regimes may force companies to adapt to the varied approaches in creative ways, including structural separation or mitigation commitments. Panelists left the audience with a practical takeaway: merging parties need an integrated global strategy taking into account more than just the current deal, and practitioners need to diligently flag risks to pipeline M&A early on.

Counseling Strategic Deals in Healthcare 

The “Counseling Strategic Deals in Healthcare” panel included state and federal enforcers and private practitioners. Each panelist confirmed that strategic deals in healthcare continue to be an enforcement focus under the second Trump Administration.

• No targeted interest in PE-related deals under the Trump Administration, but such interest continues in some states. Panelists explained how the second Trump Administration has departed from the Biden Administration’s hyper-focus on so-called private equity “roll ups.” Current federal enforcement instead tends to treat PE deals the same as other types of deals, evaluating them under traditional antitrust principles. Certain states, on the other hand, continue to give PE-involved transactions particularly close attention. Panelists provided several recent examples. For instance, they cited California’s review of the acquisition of Walgreens by PE firm Sycamore Partners and the settlement reached in that matter. 
• Enforcers continue to pursue theories of harm focused on potential harms to innovation. Panelists believed that enforcers would continue to scrutinize mergers that they perceive as having potential impacts beyond just pricing competition. For instance, the panelists noted three examples of healthcare and life sciences deals that the FTC challenged based on the reduced incentive to innovate: GTCR/Sumodics (FTC lost), Edwards/JenaValve (FTC won), and Illumina/GRAIL (mooted following voluntary divestiture). 
• State law is often broader than federal law. State regulators sometimes have a larger toolkit to review proposed transactions in the healthcare industry. California, for example, has AB 853 and charitable trust laws. AB 853 requires certain parties acquiring a retail drug firm to report their transaction to the California attorney general even if the transaction was not HSR reportable. And charitable trust laws allow enforcers to consider cross-market effects. Currently, multiple states use charitable trust laws and other state-specific regulations to enable and expand their review of healthcare transactions.
• Early antitrust counseling is critical. Multiple panelists agreed that it is important to engage antitrust counsel as soon as a potential deal in healthcare is being contemplated. Among other reasons, panelists explained, deal formation tends to generate internal documents, those documents are what enforcers will later review to understand the competitive implications of a deal, and early antitrust counsel input can help ensure complete and accurate descriptions of the impacts and benefits of potential deals. 

Key Takeaways 

• Expansive theories of harm may be used by regulators when reviewing deals, so it is important to consider a wide scope of potential competitive effects in assessing antitrust risk.
• Stay on top of trends and new laws passed by state regulators as they are constantly evolving. 
• Work with antitrust counsel early on as you are contemplating a deal.

Staying in Tunney: The Remedies Tightrope

The Legislation Committee presented a timely panel on the changing role of remedies, “Staying in Tunney: The Remedies Tightrope.” A former Antitrust Division Deputy Assistant Attorney General who served in the Biden Administration joined attorneys from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, Microsoft, and private practice for a wide-ranging conversation on remedies, transparency in government, and the Tunney Act. The panelists agreed that negotiated remedies—previously disfavored under the Biden Administration—are back on the table. 

While whether to propose a remedy remains up to the merging parties, and whether it makes sense to do so will depend on the unique circumstances of each transaction, the panelists were unanimous in stressing that a remedy proposal is most likely to be successful if it is presented early. Current and former enforcers stressed that when a remedy is presented late in the regulatory process, the parties are already preparing for litigation, so it becomes challenging for resource-constrained enforcers to meaningfully assess it. In such circumstances, enforcers may prefer to proceed with litigation rather than evaluate the late-in-the-day remedy proposal.

Panelists additionally explored the interplay between state and federal enforcement. State enforcers are demonstrating a willingness to strike a different path from their federal counterparts. Panelists cited the Live Nation trial as one recent example where settlement with DOJ did not end the litigation because state enforcers pressed forward. This outcome demonstrates that a federal settlement is no guarantee that states will be satisfied with a remedy negotiated with the federal agencies.

Finally, panelists discussed the Tunney Act, which provides a review and approval process for merger consent judgments negotiated with the DOJ. For proposed consent judgments, the settlement must undergo a public notice-and-comment process as well as judicial consideration of whether the settlement is in the public interest. Thus, the incentive to secure the narrowest possible remedy must be weighed against the need to ensure that the remedy will be approved through the Tunney Act review process. 

On a separate note, one panelist opined that, were the Supreme Court in Trump v. Slaughter to eliminate the protections against removal afforded FTC Commissioners, the FTC would then be considered the “United States” under the Tunney Act, and its consent judgments would be subject to the same Tunney Act review process. 

Key Takeaways 

• Consider potential remedies early in the regulatory process. If a potential remedy is in the merging parties’ interest, ensure enforcers have time to meaningfully weigh the proposal. 
• State enforcers will not necessarily follow the lead of federal enforcers and may decide to challenge a merger even where the relevant federal antitrust agency declines to do so. 
• For remedies negotiated with DOJ, the resulting consent judgment will receive public and judicial scrutiny under the Tunney Act, so parties should craft their proposals with the Act’s process and its public-interest standard in mind.