The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), on February 11, ordered Alphabet (including Google), Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple “to provide information about prior acquisitions not reported to the antitrust agencies under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act”. These companies will have to provide information such as the terms, scope, structure, and purpose of such transactions made between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019. Two FTC commissioners wanted to scope expanded to Privacy and Data Security as well. More on that below. The companies will also have to reveal information related to post-acquisition product development and pricing, including how acquired assets were integrated and how the acquired data was used. We have reached out to Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft for comment, and will update the story when they reply. Amazon declined to comment. What is the HSR Act? The HSR Act requires companies to file pre-merger notifications with the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department for certain acquisitions. However, companies are not required to report acquisitions less than $50 million. FTC's objectives: With this, the agency aims to asses whether these companies made potentially anticompetitive acquisitions of nascent or potential companies, and examine trends in acquisitions and the structure of deals. It also wants to deepen its understanding of how big tech companies report their transactions to federal antitrust agencies, and learn how small firms perform once they are acquired. FTC said that this exercise will help it in deciding whether smaller transactions should be subject to pre-merger notification requirements under…
