CRA economists advised a global e-commerce leader in a $300 million acquisition of a US-based specialized online platform. The transaction was announced and closed within three months with no further questions raised by the US antitrust agencies after providing data and information to the agency’s questions in the first 30 days.
A CRA expert was retained by counsel for the acquirer prior to deal signing and assisted the merging parties in assessing the antitrust risk and identifying online and offline constraints faced by the parties on both sides of the platforms. In doing so, the CRA team relied upon a series of empirical studies of historical events to substantiate such constraints, in combination with an in-depth review of the parties’ ordinary-course data and documents on the competition they face.
CRA’s team was led by Joanna Tsai and Yajing Jiang, and included Duncan Graham, Ilton Soares, and others.
