Competition

For many reasons, government competition and regulatory agencies may need to assess the state of competition in an industry. These include concerns over market consolidation, dynamic market changes, new regulations or revisions of old regulations, deregulation of industries, consumer protection policies, or even new business practices or a merger. Government agencies, companies and law firms in industries under scrutiny need deep understanding of markets, market conditions, and the role of regulation and competition. When expert support and advisory on competition matters is required, many of the largest global corporations, government agencies and legal firms engage FTI Consulting.

How We Help

Having assisted with many of the highest-profile, most complex global antitrust and M&A actions and transactions, as well as major market inquiries and competition policy in many industries, our experts bring extensive training and experience to develop a thorough understanding of the issues, apply relevant economic theory, and provide rigorous economic analyses supported by solid and persuasive empirical evidence. We work with and before regulatory agencies on the most complex competition matters to develop and present analyses to inform regulatory and competition policy.

Clients rely on us to provide expert advice and testimony on complex antitrust matters. Our experience includes assessing anticompetitive agreements between competitors, such as price fixing; information sharing and market sharing arrangements (horizontal agreements); anticompetitive agreements between suppliers and customers, such as tying, selective distribution, exclusive supply, and resale price maintenance (vertical agreements); monopolization and attempted monopolization; exclusionary conduct through tying and bundling, predatory pricing, conditional rebates, or other pricing arrangements; and exploitative conduct, excessive pricing, and unfair trading.

To protect its reputation and ensure continued freedom to operate, a company must proactively prepare for inevitable scrutiny. Accusation of anticompetitive behavior is a fundamental reputation issue for companies. It questions a company’s business models, broader ethical frameworks, and it may have a damaging impact on a customer relationship. Protecting a corporate reputation in the face of allegations, or findings of anticompetitive practice can be challenging. Our experts know this, understand the intricacies and sensitivities around it, and are uniquely equipped to navigate these issues.

Clients engage our team of strategic communications experts that includes former policymakers, regulators, reporters, and lawyers, many of whom have unique expertise on antitrust policy and regulations. Collectively, we help corporations effectively communicate to a diverse group of stakeholders, while avoiding pitfalls in the existing political environment. Working alongside corporations and their counsel pursuing deals or facing antitrust investigations, we ensure that regulatory review is conducted with our clients’ perspectives top of mind, mitigating false narratives and outside influence.