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How To Use The Digest Of Business Reviews

The Digest of Business Reviews is composed of summaries for all the business review letters issued by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice pursuant to 28 C.F.R. § 50.6 since 1968 (an initial 1968-1982 set of summaries and annual or biennial summaries thereafter), as well as a set of three cumulative indexes: topical, commodity/service, and alphabetical.

The summaries are arranged chronologically based on the date of the response letter. Each business review letter has been given a number based on its sequence within the year of issuance; i.e., 68-1 through 01-9. The 1998 Digest contains three business review letter summaries inadvertently left out of earlier digests, numbered 98-A through 98-C.

The summaries employ the following format:

Name of Requestor Date
 
Commodity or Service Topic of the Review
 
Facts: A concise description of the proposed activity or conduct.

Response: A short statement of the Division's response.

Access to the summaries can be accomplished by reference to the cumulative indexes. The topical index identifies the type of activity at issue; e.g., acquisition/merger, information exchange, joint venture, etc. The commodity/service index employs a general English-usage classification system rather than, for example, SIC code titles. The alphabetical index is keyed to the name of the requesting party/parties or to a title describing the participants in a collective request.

Requests for access to business review letters should reference the review number used in the digest and should be directed to:

Antitrust Documents Group
Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice
Suite 1010A
450 5th Street NW
Washington, DC 20530

Phone: 202-514-2481
Fax: 202-514-3763
E-mail: atrdocs.grp@usdoj.gov.

Prior to February 15, 1974, business review letters were not routinely made available for public inspection. For letters issued before that date, Division files are incomplete and requested documents may not be available.

Updated September 24, 2019