The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have issued a joint public inquiry seeking comment on whether to replace the withdrawn 2000 competitor-collaboration guidelines with modern guidance for businesses and nonprofits that work together while still competing in some respects. The inquiry is important because many collaborations are lawful and beneficial, but others can create antitrust risk, especially in areas like joint licensing, conditional dealing, algorithmic pricing, data sharing, and labor collaborations.
IHMM’s comments urged the agencies to provide practical, example-driven guidance and adopt a narrowly tailored safe harbor for nonprofit mission-related information sharing with strong antitrust safeguards.
