Justice Department’s Ongoing Section 8 Enforcement Prevents More Potentially Illegal Interlocking Directorates

The Justice Department announced today that five more directors resigned from four corporate boards and one company declined to exercise board appointment rights in response to the Antitrust Division’s enforcement efforts around Section 8 of the Clayton Act (Section 8). Section 8, which Congress made a per se violation of the antitrust laws, prohibits directors and officers from serving simultaneously on the boards of competitors, subject to limited exceptions. Today’s announcement brings the number of interlocks unwound or prevented as a result of the division’s recent efforts to at least thirteen directors from ten boards.