You’re acqui-hired!

• ‘Acqui-hires’ are increasingly common—particularly in AI and frontier technologies—and are likely to come under antitrust scrutiny.
• Microsoft’s recent acqui-hire of Inflection AI is an example of acqui-hire that has captured the attention of authorities around the world.

In today’s rapidly evolving mergers and acquisitions (M&A) landscape, traditional transactions are increasingly being replaced by more targeted and flexible deal structures, such as asset deals, ‘acqui-hires’ and IP licensing arrangements. These allow companies to acquire specific components of a business, such as talent, technology, data, or specific compounds (which may not necessarily, by themselves, generate revenue), without taking on an entire entity or a shareholding thereof.

While the acquisition of ‘bare’ physical assets (such as office equipment, vehicle fleets or warehouse space) is unlikely to engage merger control rules, such targeted transactions may be viewed by regulators as substantially equivalent to a full merger and therefore may be subject to antitrust scrutiny—particularly