A&O Shearman’s global trends in merger control enforcement 2025 Report

In this tenth edition of the report, A&O Shearman’s antitrust experts address the important issues shaping merger control enforcement and the ability of corporate and investment deal professionals to conclude transactions.

The report finds that in 2024, more deals were frustrated by antitrust authorities than in any of the previous four years, with a striking 50% rise in transactions abandoned due to antitrust concerns. The question now is whether the landscape for executing M&A in 2025 will be appreciably different.

“Merger control enforcement is at a critical juncture as governments in key jurisdictions prioritize domestic growth, innovation and competitiveness,” said Dominic Long, global deputy head of antitrust at A&O Shearman.

Jessica Delbaum, one of our leading U.S. antitrust partners noted: “In the U.S., merging parties faced longer investigations and antitrust agencies that favored challenging deals over accepting merger remedies.

“Under Trump 2.0 we may see some regulatory easing, but a tough approach to M&A in certain sectors, such as tech, looks set to continue. In addition, merging parties face more onerous filing obligations due to reforms passed at the end of the last administration.”

Variations and challenges in the merger control enforcement landscape across the world are reflected in the report.

“New merger control and foreign investment regimes continue to emerge, and many authorities are updating their rulebooks to try to catch more deals,” said Peter McDonald, antitrust partner based in Sydney. “This makes execution risk harder to quantify and underscores the need for robust deal protections.”

Global trends in merger control enforcement 2025 analyzes data from 26 jurisdictions to give a unique insight into current trends as well as an outlook for the future.

“These are both exciting and challenging times for dealmaking,” said Francesca Miotto, Brussels-based antitrust partner. “Coordinating and securing multi-jurisdictional regulatory clearances requires a deep understanding of the attitudes and concerns of a plethora of authorities. In this uncertain regulatory climate, in which execution risk has become increasingly hard to assess, deal protections are crucial and heavily negotiated.”

Other significant insights in the report include:

• The ways in which antitrust authorities’ attitudes to merger remedies are causing headwinds.
• The importance of deal protections in an uncertain regulatory climate.
• How tech deals, serial acquisitions and private equity are feeling the antitrust heat.
• The challenges presented by foreign investment control regulations and the EU foreign subsidies regime.
• The impact of regulatory reviews on deal timelines.