KKR同意支付2.5亿美元和解DOJ反垄断HSR申报违规诉讼，为史上最大申报违规罚款

Private equity giant KKR & Co. has agreed to pay $250 million to resolve a civil antitrust case filed by the US Justice Department alleging the investment firm intentionally withheld documents from government-required merger reviews on more than a dozen deals, the largest-ever penalty for filing violations.

The settlement was announced in a federal court filing late Wednesday. The agreement applies to all of the private equity firm’s entities on any deals filed before 2025.

In a lawsuit filed in the final week of the Biden Administration, the Justice Department sought $650 million in civil penalties over KKR’s alleged failure to comply with the merger disclosure requirements of the Hart-Scott-Rodino, or HSR Act, on at least 16 deals. The transactions were valued at a total of more than $24.7 billion at the time, according to a Bloomberg tally of takeovers cited by the complaint.

KKR and the DOJ had previously reached a tentative settlement for the company to pay around $250 million in penalties shortly before the 2024 presidential election, Bloomberg previously reported, but never finalized the deal.

KKR didn’t have an immediate comment on the settlement.

The $250 million civil penalty is more than 20 times the amount of the largest previous settlement over antitrust filing violations — $12 million that Edwards Lifesciences Corp. paid in July for failure to notify federal authorities about a deal to buy a medical device maker.

The case against KKR, one of the world’s largest investment firms, was part of the Biden Administration’s stepped-up antitrust scrutiny of the private equity sector. It marked the largest enforcement action against a company over merger review filings and was one of the final acts of the DOJ’s antitrust division before President Donald Trump took office.

Under US law, most deals valued at more than $134 million must notify the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission before closing the transaction. The DOJ polices violations of the law and can fine companies more than $50,000 per day for failing to report a deal or making errors in the filings. The law requires companies undertaking mergers to submit studies, analyses and reports prepared for the executives or board of directors about a deal.

KKR had sought to dismiss the DOJ’s lawsuit and filed a separate case against the DOJ arguing it hadn’t violated the law, though the judge in both cases never issued rulings.

The DOJ continued to investigate the case under the Trump Administration. As part of the probe, DOJ prosecutors won the right to view privileged communications between KKR and its lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis, Bloomberg previously reported.

Read More: DOJ Won Access to KKR’s Emails With Lawyers in Probe of PE Deals