{"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","dataset":"reports","count":1,"filters":{"report":"federal-merger-review-2016-2025","reportMatched":true,"reportId":"rep-federal-merger-review","reportSlug":"federal-merger-review-2016-2025","reportTitle":"The Federal Merger Review Pipeline, 2016-2025"},"rows":[{"id":"rep-federal-merger-review","slug":"federal-merger-review-2016-2025","title":"The Federal Merger Review Pipeline, 2016-2025","subtitle":"Notification volume swung widely while annual Second Request rates stayed between 1.6% and 3.0%","summary":"A source-backed research brief tracing ten fiscal years of HSR notifications, monthly activity, in-depth review, and the FY2025 transaction-size field without treating federal procedure as a finding of competitive harm.","body":"Across FY2016-FY2025, the federal HSR program recorded 22,235 reported transactions, 44,014 filings, and 21,496 adjusted transactions. Annual reported volume ranged from 1,637 in FY2020 to 3,520 in FY2021. FY2025 recorded 2,006 reported transactions, down 1.2 percent from FY2024. The annual Second Request rate among adjusted transactions ranged from 1.6 percent to 3.0 percent; 509 Second Requests across the ten-year adjusted denominator produce a descriptive pooled rate of 2.4 percent. FY2025 recorded 41 Second Requests, or 2.1 percent, down 0.9 percentage point from FY2024. Its transaction-size table covers all 1,944 adjusted transactions: 618, or 31.8 percent, were valued at $1 billion or more and accounted for 20 Second Requests. The corresponding 3.2 percent rate and the 1.6 percent rate below $1 billion are descriptive pipeline shares, not causal estimates. Monthly timing, clearance, Second Requests, public enforcement actions, remedies, abandonments, and later competitive outcomes remain distinct. HSR records do not cover every U.S. merger and do not by themselves show whether a reported transaction harmed competition.","coverImageUrl":null,"publishedAt":"2026-07-20","relatedMarketIds":[],"sourceIds":["ftc-doj-hsr-report-2025"],"sourceBasis":"Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice 48th Hart-Scott-Rodino Annual Report, including FY2016-FY2025 annual and fiscal-month tables and the FY2025 transaction-size table.","tableOfContents":["Annual pipeline","Fiscal-month field","Transaction-size field","Exact annual ledger","Public research agenda","Methodology and limits"],"preview":"A ten-year map of federal merger notifications and review procedure with exact monthly and transaction-size evidence, source custody, and permanent outcome guardrails.","publicationType":"research_brief","seriesTitle":"Competition Research Briefs","seriesNumber":"AR-RB-2026-05","authorName":"Antitrust Radar Research Team","version":"1.0","updatedAt":"2026-07-20","publicationStatus":"current","revisionNote":"Initial public edition.","canonicalCitation":"Antitrust Radar Research Team. (2026, July 20). The Federal Merger Review Pipeline, 2016-2025: Notification volume swung widely while annual Second Request rates stayed between 1.6% and 3.0%. Competition Research Briefs, AR-RB-2026-05 (Version 1.0). Antitrust Radar. https://antitrustradar.org/reports/federal-merger-review-2016-2025","citationDownloads":{"bibtex":"/reports/federal-merger-review-2016-2025/citation/bibtex","ris":"/reports/federal-merger-review-2016-2025/citation/ris"},"sourceProfileHrefs":["/sources/ftc-doj-hsr-report-2025"]}]}