Facing hurdles: Tech, healthcare, and consumer sector deals under intense antitrust scrutiny

Shifting intervention in tech M&A

In 2025, the level of antitrust intervention in tech M&A (14%) edged closer to the proportion of global M&A accounted for by tech deals (22%) than we’ve seen in previous years. Antitrust scrutiny in the sector continues to intensify.  

However, there has been a clear shift in the type of intervention.  

In 2024, authorities focused on blocking tech deals and, in several cases, the threat of antitrust intervention caused the parties to walk away.  
 

By contrast, in 2025 most tech transactions that raised concerns in the jurisdictions surveyed (12 of 15) were resolved with remedies. This is in line with the broader trend towards authorities fixing concerns with remedies rather than frustrating M&A altogether (see Fewer roadblocks for M&A: Politics play into lighter touch merger control enforcement and Back on track: Revival of merger remedies clears path for more approvals). 

Included in this tally were the semiconductor deal between Synopsys and Ansys and Keysight’s acquisition of Spirent in the network and cybersecurity testing sector. Both required multiple merger control approvals and ended in a global package of remedies agreed across jurisdictions.  

Significantly, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation called in each of these transactions. This highlights the authority’s appetite for scrutinizing—and intervening in—global tech M&A, even where it falls below Chinese merger control thresholds (also see Driving uncertainty: Below threshold M&A is not safe from merger control review).  

In our 2024 report, we discussed the expanding antitrust spotlight on partnerships between Big Tech and AI firms. However, last year we saw little merger control action in this space.  

As non-traditional transaction structures, AI partnerships have challenged the limits of the authorities’ jurisdictional reach under merger control rules. But we expect them to be kept under close watch, both from a merger control and behavioral antitrust perspective.  

Already in 2026, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officials have raised concerns that “acqui-hires” of talent in the AI research sector could amount to “buy or kill” arrangements. Future enforcement action seems possible despite questions as to the current administration’s interest in such a novel theory of harm.  

No remedy for healthcare deals  

Life sciences M&A remained a core focus for antitrust authorities. Their proportion of antitrust intervention reached 13%, compared to the 8% of global M&A accounted for by deals in this sector.  

Most of these deals were prohibited or abandoned.  

In fact, nearly a third of all frustrated deals last year were in the life sciences sector. This included transactions relating to pharmaceutical products, healthcare centers, and home-based care. A radiopharmaceuticals deal was the subject of Spain’s first ever merger control prohibition. 

Where remedies were accepted, they were often extensive.  

The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ), for example, required the sale of 164 home health/hospice locations—the largest settlement of its kind—to address concerns over UnitedHealth’s purchase of Amedisys. And, in two medical devices transactions, the FTC and the parties could not reach a settlement and chose to litigate over the adequacy of the parties’ offered remedies. 

Other consumer-facing sectors under fire 

Many antitrust authorities have been vocal about their desire to police M&A in sectors that have a direct impact on consumers, particularly areas of non-discretionary spend. 

It is therefore no surprise that, in 2025, we saw a higher proportion of antitrust intervention in consumer and retail, energy, telecoms, and transport deals than these sectors’ share of global M&A volumes. 

Almost a quarter of all antitrust interventions were in the consumer and retail space. Food transactions have attracted particular attention, with authorities keen to keep grocery prices affordable. 

Energy transactions accounted for 10% of antitrust intervention in 2025, compared to 6% of global M&A. As in previous years, conditional clearances accounted for almost all of this total.

In the U.S., we saw the first merger remedy case in the electricity sector in 14 years. When announcing the settlement, former DOJ head Abigail Slater referred to the price of electricity as a “pocketbook issue to American consumers working hard to afford their monthly utility bills.”

In telecoms, the proportion of antitrust intervention was seven times higher than the sector’s share of global M&A. In most cases, behavioral remedies were used to fix antitrust concerns, including pricing commitments. Telecoms firms continue to push for more lenient treatment of their tie-ups, but authorities are holding firm. 

Private equity gets a break? 

In last year’s report we noted the intense antitrust scrutiny—mainly in the U.S.—of PE acquisitions, especially roll-up strategies. We also anticipated that this may change under the new Trump administration. 

This prediction appears to be ringing true. 

U.S. enforcement action has involved PE acquirers. Last year the FTC entered a landmark settlement with Welsh Carson over allegedly anticompetitive roll-ups, and the agency challenged PE firm GTCR’s acquisition of Surmodics.   

However, unlike the Democratic FTC under Biden, which focused heavily on the fact that these cases involved PE companies (and even called out the Welsh Carson order for its “novel treatment of private equity defendants”), Trump’s FTC has been keen to state that it is not singling out PE for special treatment. 

So, while we expect to see serial acquisitions/roll-ups remain on the agencies’ radars, any action is unlikely to be PE-specific. 

From an execution risk perspective, this is a welcome development for PE acquirers. But it does not alleviate the substantial administrative burden faced by PE firms when complying with merger control (as well as foreign direct investment/EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation) approval processes.