CHICAGO – Attorney General Kwame Raoul today joined a coalition of state attorneys general asking to intervene in a court’s review of the $14 billion merger settlement between information technology companies Hewlett Packard Enterprises and Juniper Networks, which was reportedly the result of undue influence.
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In light of the significant concerns about the process and substance of the HPE/Juniper Networks settlement, the coalition is urging the court to apply its authority under the federal Tunney Act to order an evidentiary hearing in which the states can appear as parties. The Tunney Act is a post-Watergate law enacted by Congress in 1974 to ensure that antitrust settlements reached by the Justice Department are based on the merits rather than undue influence by powerful corporations and their well-connected lobbyists.
“As the Justice Department itself alleges, this merger has the potential to drastically limit competition and substantially increase prices for consumers,” Raoul said. “I join my colleagues in asking that the court put the public’s interests first to ensure they are not saddled with higher costs from a merger that was reportedly the product of influence peddling and backroom dealmaking.”
Last month, Attorney General Raoul joined a group of attorneys general in sending a letter to the Justice Department questioning the settlement after media reporting indicated that the final product was driven by improper influence peddling at the highest levels of the department, rather than antitrust concerns. Moreover, the settlement seems to have wholly deficient remedies relative to the anticompetitive harms alleged by the Justice Department in their complaint seeking to block the merger.
Today, Raoul and the coalition of attorneys general, who have the authority to enforce the federal antitrust laws, are asking the court to grant their motion to intervene in the case, arguing that the states have a strong interest in ensuring that antitrust settlements are in the public interest and in preventing unlawful mergers from harming their residents. Without the states’ intervention, the coalition explains, the only parties to the Tunney Act proceeding would be those that support the settlement, and the court would hear a one-sided argument. Intervention would also give the states an efficient path to review the merger on the merits and, if necessary, challenge it in court.
Attorney General Raoul joins the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin in filing the motion with the court.
