HSR Form Dispute: Where Things Stand

On March 25, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a Request for Public Comment seeking input on improvements to the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger notification form (the “HSR form”).

The comment period closed on May 26. Currently, the public docket shows only 55 public comments posted.

As a reminder, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (the “Chamber”) sued the FTC to block the use of the new HSR form. A federal district court agreed and enjoined its use. The FTC appealed and sought a stay pending appeal, which was denied. The FTC then moved to stay the appeal itself while it reviewed the public comments it had solicited. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted that stay through December 31, 2026, but requires status updates every 60 days.

Against that backdrop, it is no surprise that the Chamber filed a comment.

Of particular note is the Chamber’s statement that the FTC and DOJ framed the Request for Public Comment around the vacated HSR form as a starting point—but that form has already been struck down as violating federal law.

The Chamber put it bluntly: “It is no longer an ‘Updated Form,’ as the [FTC and DOJ] insist on calling it: instead, it is a vacated form that has been found to violate federal law. The only legally valid form is the current form, or as the district court described it, ‘the old Form—used for forty-six years.’”

In short, the Chamber’s position is that the agencies cannot treat an invalidated HSR form as the baseline for a new rulemaking—the appropriate baseline would be the original (and still-in-use) HSR form.

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