The United States filed a civil lawsuit on Tuesday against private equity firm KKR, accusing it of “repeatedly flouting the premerger antitrust review process” by allegedly circumventing antitrust scrutiny in at least 16 transactions between 2021 and 2022, according to a report by Reuters.
“Through document omissions, alterations, and failures to report deals, KKR threatened the integrity of the (Antitrust) Division’s premerger reviews and, in some cases, obscured the market impact of its deals and serial acquisitions,” said Justice Department official Doha Mekki.
In response, KKR filed a related lawsuit against the Department of Justice in federal court in Washington the same day, saying that, “After a sweeping investigation that has spanned nearly three years – with which KKR fully cooperated – the purported filing ‘errors’ the Antitrust Division has identified are trivial.”
“Not a single alleged ‘error’ was material to or interfered with any merger review,” KKR added.
