22136 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 76 / Monday, April 21, 2014 / Notices 

1 In particular, the written request for confidential 

treatment that accompanies the comment must 

include the factual and legal basis for the request, 

and must identify the specific portions of the 

comment to be withheld from the public record. See 

FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c). 

interim monitor to assure that Akorn 

and Hi-Tech expeditiously comply with 

all of their obligations and perform all 

of their responsibilities pursuant to the 

Consent Agreement. In order to ensure 

that the Commission remains informed 

about the status of the transfer of rights 

and assets, the Consent Agreement 

requires Akorn and Hi-Tech to file 

reports with the interim monitor who 

will report in writing to the Commission 

concerning performance by the parties 

of their obligations under the Consent 

Agreement. 

The purpose of this analysis is to 

facilitate public comment on the 

proposed Consent Agreement, and it is 

not intended to constitute an official 

interpretation of the proposed Order or 

to modify its terms in any way. 

By direction of the Commission. 

Donald S. Clark, 

Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2014–08950 Filed 4–18–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6750–01–P 

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

[Docket No. 9356] 

Ardagh Group S.A., Saint-Gobain 

Containers, Inc., and Compagnie de 

Saint-Gobain; Analysis of Agreement 

Containing Consent Orders To Aid 

Public Comment 

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission. 

ACTION: Proposed consent agreement. 

SUMMARY: The consent agreement in this 

matter settles alleged violations of 

federal law prohibiting unfair methods 

of competition. The attached Analysis of 

Agreement Containing Consent Orders 

to Aid Public Comment describes both 

the allegations in the complaint and the 

terms of the consent orders—embodied 

in the consent agreement—that would 

settle these allegations. 

DATES: Comments must be received on 

or before May 12, 2014. 

ADDRESSES: Interested parties may file 

comments at https://

ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/

ardaghstgobainconsent online or on 

paper, by following the instructions in 

the Request for Comments part of the 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section 

below. Write ‘‘Ardagh Group S.A and 

Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc. and 

Compagnie de Saint-Gobain,—Consent 

Agreement; Docket No. 9356’’ on your 

comment and file your comment online 

at https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/

ftc/ardaghstgobainconsent by following 

the instructions on the web-based form. 

If you prefer to file your comment on 

paper, mail or deliver your comments to 

the following address: Federal Trade 

Commission, Office of the Secretary, 

Room H–113 (Annex D), 600 

Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, 

DC 20580. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Catharine Moscatelli, Bureau of 

Competition, (202–326–2749), 600 

Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, 

DC 20580. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant 

to Section 6(f) of the Federal Trade 

Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and 

FTC Rule 3.25(f),16 CFR § 3.25(f), notice 

is hereby given that the above-captioned 

consent agreement containing consent 

orders to cease and desist, having been 

filed with and accepted, subject to final 

approval, by the Commission, has been 

placed on the public record for a period 

of thirty (30) days. The following 

Analysis to Aid Public Comment 

describes the terms of the consent 

agreement, and the allegations in the 

complaint. An electronic copy of the 

full text of the consent agreement 

package can be obtained from the FTC 

Home Page (for April 10, 2014), on the 

World Wide Web, at http://www.ftc.gov/ 

os/actions.shtm. A paper copy can be 

obtained from the FTC Public Reference 

Room, Room 130–H, 600 Pennsylvania 

Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20580, 

either in person or by calling (202) 326– 

2222. 

You can file a comment online or on 

paper. For the Commission to consider 

your comment, we must receive it on or 

before May 12, 2014. Write ‘‘Ardagh 

Group S.A and Saint-Gobain Containers, 

Inc. and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain,— 

Consent Agreement; Docket No. 9356’’ 

on your comment. Your comment— 

including your name and your state— 

will be placed on the public record of 

this proceeding, including, to the extent 

practicable, on the public Commission 

Web site, at http://www.ftc.gov/os/

publiccomments.shtm. As a matter of 

discretion, the Commission tries to 

remove individuals’ home contact 

information from comments before 

placing them on the Commission Web 

site. 

Because your comment will be made 

public, you are solely responsible for 

making sure that your comment does 

not include any sensitive personal 

information, like anyone’s Social 

Security number, date of birth, driver’s 

license number or other state 

identification number or foreign country 

equivalent, passport number, financial 

account number, or credit or debit card 

number. You are also solely responsible 

for making sure that your comment does 

not include any sensitive health 

information, like medical records or 

other individually identifiable health 

information. In addition, do not include 

any ‘‘[t]rade secret or any commercial or 

financial information which . . . is 

privileged or confidential,’’ as discussed 

in Section 6(f) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. 

46(f), and FTC Rule 4.10(a)(2), 16 CFR 

4.10(a)(2). In particular, do not include 

competitively sensitive information 

such as costs, sales statistics, 

inventories, formulas, patterns, devices, 

manufacturing processes, or customer 

names. 

If you want the Commission to give 

your comment confidential treatment, 

you must file it in paper form, with a 

request for confidential treatment, and 

you have to follow the procedure 

explained in FTC Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 

4.9(c).1 Your comment will be kept 

confidential only if the FTC General 

Counsel, in his or her sole discretion, 

grants your request in accordance with 

the law and the public interest. 

Postal mail addressed to the 

Commission is subject to delay due to 

heightened security screening. As a 

result, we encourage you to submit your 

comment online. To make sure that the 

Commission considers your online 

comment, you must file it at https://

ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/

ardaghstgobainconsent by following the 

instructions on the web-based forms. If 

this Notice appears at http://

www.regulations.gov/#!home, you also 

may file a comment through that Web 

site. 

If you file your comment on paper, 

write ‘‘Ardagh Group S.A and SaintGobain Containers, Inc. and Compagnie 

de Saint-Gobain,—Consent Agreement; 

Docket No. 9356’’ on your comment and 

on the envelope, and mail or deliver it 

to the following address: Federal Trade 

Commission, Office of the Secretary, 

Room H–113 (Annex D), 600 

Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, 

DC 20580. If possible, submit your 

paper comment to the Commission by 

courier or overnight service. 

Visit the Commission Web site at 

http://www.ftc.gov to read this Notice 

and the news release describing it. The 

FTC Act and other laws that the 

Commission administers permit the 

collection of public comments to 

consider and use in this proceeding as 

appropriate. The Commission will 

consider all timely and responsive 

public comments that it receives on or 

before May 12, 2014. You can find more 

information, including routine uses 


ehiers on DSK2VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 76 / Monday, April 21, 2014 / Notices 22137 

permitted by the Privacy Act, in the 

Commission’s privacy policy, at http:// 

www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm. 

Analysis of Agreement Containing 

Consent Orders To Aid Public Comment 

I. Introduction 

The Federal Trade Commission 

(‘‘Commission’’) has accepted, subject to 

final approval, an Agreement 

Containing Consent Orders (‘‘Consent 

Agreement’’) with Ardagh Group S.A. 

(‘‘Ardagh’’). The purpose of the Consent 

Agreement is to remedy the 

anticompetitive effects of Ardagh’s 

proposed acquisition of Saint-Gobain 

Containers, Inc. (‘‘Saint-Gobain’’) from 

Compagnie de Saint-Gobain. Under the 

terms of the Consent Agreement, Ardagh 

must divest six of its nine United States 

glass container manufacturing plants to 

an acquirer approved by the 

Commission. The Consent Agreement 

provides the acquirer the manufacturing 

plants and other tangible and intangible 

assets it needs to effectively compete in 

the markets for the manufacture and 

sale of glass containers to both beer 

brewers and spirits distillers in the 

United States. Ardagh must complete 

the divestiture within six months of the 

date it signs the Consent Agreement. 

On January 17, 2013, Ardagh agreed 

to acquire Saint-Gobain from its French 

parent company, Compagnie de SaintGobain, for approximately $1.7 billion. 

This acquisition would concentrate 

most of the $5 billion U.S. glass 

container industry in two major 

competitors—Owens-Illinois, Inc. (‘‘O– 

I’’) and the combined Ardagh/SaintGobain. These two major competitors 

would also control the vast majority of 

glass containers sold to beer brewers 

and spirits distillers in the United 

States. On June 28, 2013, the 

Commission issued an administrative 

complaint alleging that the acquisition, 

if consummated, may substantially 

lessen competition in the markets for 

the manufacture and sale of glass 

containers to brewers and distillers in 

the United States in violation of Section 

7 of the Clayton Act, as amended, 15 

U.S.C. 18, and Section 5 of the Federal 

Trade Commission Act, as amended, 15 

U.S.C. 45. 

The Consent Agreement has been 

placed on the public record for 30 days 

to solicit comments from interested 

persons. Comments received during this 

period will become a part of the public 

record. After 30 days, the Commission 

will review the Consent Agreement and 

comments received, and decide whether 

it should withdraw, modify, or make the 

Consent Agreement final. 

II. The Parties 

Ardagh, headquartered in 

Luxembourg, is a global leader in glass 

and metal packaging. Ardagh entered 

the United States glass container 

industry through two 2012 

acquisitions—first acquiring a singleplant glass container manufacturer, 

Leone Industries, and then an eightplant manufacturer, Anchor Glass 

Container Corporation (‘‘Anchor’’). 

Through the Anchor acquisition, 

Ardagh became the third-largest glass 

container manufacturer in the country, 

supplying glass containers for beer, 

spirits, non-alcoholic beverages, and 

food. Ardagh’s nine glass container 

manufacturing plants are located in 

seven U.S. states. 

Saint-Gobain is a wholly-owned U.S. 

subsidiary of Compagnie de SaintGobain, a French company which, 

among other businesses, manufactures 

and sells glass containers throughout 

the world. In the United States, SaintGobain is the second-largest glass 

container manufacturer, supplying beer, 

spirits, wine, non-alcoholic beverages, 

and food containers. Saint-Gobain 

operates 13 glass container 

manufacturing plants located in 11 U.S. 

states. Saint-Gobain, operates under the 

name ‘‘Verallia North America’’ or 

‘‘VNA.’’ 

III. The Manufacture and Sale of Glass 

Containers to Brewers and Distillers in 

the United States 

Absent the remedy, Ardagh’s 

acquisition would harm competition in 

two relevant lines of commerce: the 

manufacture and sale of glass containers 

to (1) beer brewers, and (2) spirits 

distillers in the United States. Currently, 

only three firms—Owens-Illinois, Inc., 

Saint-Gobain, and Ardagh— 

manufacture and sell most glass 

containers to brewers and distillers in 

the United States. Collectively, these 

three firms control approximately 85 

percent of the United States glass 

container market for brewers, and 

approximately 77 percent of the market 

for distillers. 

The Commission often calculates the 

Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (‘‘HHI’’) to 

assess market concentration. Under the 

Federal Trade Commission and 

Department of Justice Horizontal Merger 

Guidelines, markets with an HHI above 

2,500 are generally classified as ‘‘highly 

concentrated,’’ and acquisitions 

‘‘resulting in highly concentrated 

markets that involve an increase in the 

HHI of more than 200 points will be 

presumed to be likely to enhance market 

power.’’ In this case, both relevant 

product markets are already 

concentrated and the acquisition would 

increase the HHIs substantially. Absent 

the proposed remedy, the acquisition 

would increase the HHI by 782 points 

to 3,657 for glass beer containers, and by 

1,072 points to 3,138 for glass spirits 

containers. With the proposed remedy, 

however, Ardagh’s acquisition of SaintGobain will result in no increase in HHI 

in the glass container market for beer 

brewers and a 33 point HHI increase in 

the glass container market for distillers. 

The relevant product markets in 

which to analyze the effects of the 

acquisition do not include other 

packaging materials, such as aluminum 

cans for beer or plastic bottles for spirits 

for several reasons. First, Ardagh and 

Saint-Gobain routinely identify each 

other and O–I as their most direct 

competitors, focusing their business 

strategies, market analysis, and pricing 

on glass container competition. Indeed, 

glass container pricing is not responsive 

to the pricing of other types of 

containers. Second, although brewers 

and distillers use aluminum and plastic 

packaging, respectively, for their 

products, these customers solicit and 

evaluate glass container bids 

independently of their can and plastic 

procurement efforts. Third, brewers and 

distillers demand glass so that they may 

maintain a premium image and brand 

equity and meet their consumers’ 

expectations. Thus, brewers and 

distillers cannot easily or quickly 

substitute their glass container 

purchases with other packaging 

materials without jeopardizing the sale 

of their own products. Finally, Ardagh 

and Saint-Gobain distinguish glass 

containers from containers made with 

other materials based on qualities 

including oxygen impermeability, 

chemical inertness, and glass’ ability to 

be recycled. 

The United States is the appropriate 

geographic market in which to evaluate 

the likely competitive effects of the 

acquisition. Ardagh and Saint-Gobain 

each maintain geographically diverse 

networks of plants that manufacture and 

sell glass containers to brewers and 

distillers throughout the country. Most 

U.S. brewers and distillers have similar 

competitive glass container alternatives 

from which to choose, regardless of 

their geographic location. The relevant 

geographic market is no broader than 

the United States because product 

weight and logistics constraints limit 

brewers’ and distillers’ ability to 

purchase significant volumes of glass 

containers from outside the country. 

IV. Effects of the Acquisition 

Absent relief, the acquisition would 

result in an effective duopoly likely to 


ehiers on DSK2VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
22138 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 76 / Monday, April 21, 2014 / Notices 

2Chairwoman Ramirez and Commissioners Brill 

and Ohlhausen join in this statement. 

3U.S. Dep’t of Justice & Fed. Trade Comm’n, 

Horizontal Merger Guidelines § 7.1 (2010) 

[hereinafter 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines], 

available at http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/

attachments/merger-review/100819hmg.pdf. 

cause significant competitive harm in 

the markets for the manufacture and 

sale of glass containers to brewers and 

distillers. The glass container industry 

is a highly consolidated, stable industry, 

with low growth rates and high barriers 

to entry. The acquisition would increase 

the ease and likelihood of 

anticompetitive coordination between 

the only two remaining major suppliers. 

The acquisition would also eliminate 

direct competition between Ardagh and 

Saint-Gobain. Thus, the acquisition 

would likely result in higher prices and 

a reduction in services and other 

benefits to brewers and distillers. 

V. Entry 

Entry into the markets for the 

manufacture and sale of glass containers 

to brewers and distillers would not be 

timely, likely, or sufficient in 

magnitude, character, and scope to deter 

or counteract the likely competitive 

harm from the acquisition. The glass 

container industry in the United States 

enjoys significant barriers to entry and 

expansion including the high cost of 

building glass manufacturing plants, 

high fixed operating costs, the need for 

substantial technological and 

manufacturing expertise, and long-term 

customer contracts. For these reasons, 

entry by a new market participant or 

expansion by an existing one, would not 

deter the likely anticompetitive effects 

from the acquisition. 

VI. The Consent Agreement 

The proposed Consent Agreement 

remedies the competitive concerns 

raised by the acquisition by requiring 

Ardagh to divest six of its nine glass 

container manufacturing plants in the 

United States to an acquirer within six 

months of executing the Consent 

Agreement. In addition, the Consent 

Agreement requires Ardagh to transfer 

all customer contracts currently 

serviced at those six plants to an 

acquirer through an agreement approved 

by the Commission. 

Under the proposed Consent 

Agreement, Ardagh will divest six of the 

manufacturing plants that it acquired 

when it purchased Anchor in 2012, 

along with Anchor’s corporate 

headquarters, mold and engineering 

facilities. The six plants produce glass 

containers for brewers and distillers and 

are located in: Elmira, NY; Jacksonville, 

FL; Warner Robins, GA; Henryetta, OK; 

Lawrenceburg, IN; and Shakopee, MN. 

Anchor’s corporate headquarters, mold 

and engineering facilities are located in 

Tampa, FL, Zanesville, OH, and 

Streator, IL, respectively. Other assets 

that Ardagh will divest include 

customer contracts, molds, intellectual 

property, inventory, accounts 

receivable, government licenses and 

permits, and business records. In 

addition, the Consent Agreement limits 

Ardagh’s use of, and access to, 

confidential business information 

pertaining to the divestiture assets. 

Through the proposed Consent 

Agreement, the acquirer of these assets 

will be the third-largest glass container 

manufacturer in the United States. 

These assets replicate the amount of 

glass containers for beer and spirits that 

the third largest supplier offers today. 

The acquirer will own plants that span 

a broad geographic footprint, offer a 

well-balanced product mix, and have 

flexible manufacturing capabilities. Its 

presence will preserve the three-way 

competition that currently exists in the 

relevant markets and moderate the 

potential for coordination. 

Ardagh must complete the divestiture 

within six months of signing the 

Consent Agreement. Pending 

divestiture, Ardagh is obligated to hold 

the divestiture assets separate and to 

maintain the viability, marketability and 

competitiveness of the assets. With the 

hold separate in place, the divested 

assets, under the direction of an 

experienced senior management team, 

will be in a position to compete in the 

glass industry, independent from 

Ardagh. A hold separate monitor will 

supervise the management of the 

divestiture assets until Ardagh 

completes the divestiture. 

The purpose of this analysis is to 

facilitate public comment on the 

proposed Consent Agreement, and is not 

intended to constitute an official 

interpretation of the proposed Decision 

and Order or to modify its terms in any 

way. 

Statement of the Federal Trade 

Commission 2

In June 2013, the Commission issued 

a complaint alleging that Ardagh Group, 

S.A.’s proposed $1.7 billion acquisition 

of Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc. would 

reduce competition in the U.S. markets 

for glass containers for beer and spirits. 

Specifically, the Commission alleges 

that the acquisition would have 

eliminated head-to-head competition 

between the parties and resulted in a 

near duopoly in markets already 

vulnerable to coordination. If the 

Commission had not challenged the 

deal, the merged firm and its only 

remaining significant competitor, 

Owens-Illinois would have controlled 

more than 75 percent of the relevant 

markets. The Commission staff 

developed evidence to prove at trial that 

the acquisition would likely have 

substantially lessened competition in 

violation of Section 7 of the Clayton 

Act. After the start of litigation, the 

parties chose to settle the matter by 

divesting six of the nine U.S. plants 

currently owned by Ardagh. The 

Commission has now accepted the 

proposed consent order for public 

comment and believes it addresses the 

competitive issues here, as well as the 

widespread customer concerns 

expressed by brewers and distillers who 

depend on a steady and competitivelypriced supply of glass containers. We 

outline below our concerns with this 

deal and the benefits of the proposed 

consent. 

The 2010 Merger Guidelines explain 

that the Commission will likely 

challenge a transaction where ‘‘(1) the 

merger would significantly increase 

concentration and lead to a moderately 

or highly concentrated market; (2) that 

market shows signs of vulnerability to 

coordinated conduct . . . ; and (3) the 

Agencies have a credible basis on which 

to conclude that the merger may 

enhance that vulnerability.’’ 3 We have 

reason to believe each of these factors is 

present here. The transaction would 

have dramatically increased 

concentration in already highlyconcentrated markets. The glass 

container markets for beer and spirits 

are vulnerable to post-acquisition 

coordination, exhibiting features such as 

low demand growth, tight capacity, high 

and stable market shares, and high 

barriers to entry that typify markets that 

have experienced coordination. The 

existing three major glass manufacturers 

already have access to a wealth of 

information about the markets and each 

other, including plant-by-plant 

production capabilities, profitability, 

the identities of each other’s customers, 

and details regarding each other’s 

contracts and negotiations with 

customers. Customers, industry 

analysts, public statements, and 

distributors all serve as conduits for 

market information. The Commission 

found evidence that companies in this 

industry understand their shared 

incentives to keep capacity tight, avoid 

price wars, and follow a ‘‘price over 

volume’’ strategy. We believe this 

transaction would have made it easier 

for the remaining two dominant 

manufacturers to coordinate with one 

another on price and non-price terms to 


ehiers on DSK2VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 76 / Monday, April 21, 2014 / Notices 22139 

4See 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines §§ 6, 

6.2–6.3. 

5See id. § 10. 

6 Fed. Trade Comm’n v. Heinz, 246 F.3d 708, 720 

(D.C. Cir. 2001); In re Polypore Int’l, Inc., Initial 

Decision, No. 9327, 2010 WL 866178, at *184–85 

(FTC Mar. 1, 2010). 

7Malcolm B. Coate & Andrew J. Heimert, Merger 

Efficiencies at the Federal Trade Commission: 

1997–2007 14 n.31 (2009), available at http://

www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/

merger-efficiencies-federal-trade-commission1997%E2%80%932007/0902mergerefficiencies.pdf. 

8 Darren S. Tucker, A Survey of Evidence Leading 

to Second Requests at the FTC, 78 Antitrust L.J. 

591, 602 (2013). 

9 Dissenting Statement of Commissioner Wright at 

5. 

10 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines § 10. 

11United States v. H&R Block, Inc., 833 F. Supp. 

2d 36, 46 (D.D.C. 2011); see also 2010 Horizontal 

Merger Guidelines § 10 (noting that it is ‘‘incumbent 

upon the merging firms to substantiate efficiency 

claims so that the Agencies can verify [them] by 

reasonable means.’’). 12H&R Block, 833 F. Supp. 2d at 46. 

achieve supracompetitive prices or 

other anticompetitive outcomes. 

As noted in the 2010 Merger 

Guidelines, the Commission will also 

likely challenge a transaction producing 

harmful unilateral effects. For instance, 

this could occur where the merged firm 

would no longer have to negotiate 

against other competitors for customer 

supply contracts, or where the 

transaction would eliminate a 

competitor that otherwise could have 

expanded output in response to a price 

increase.4 The Commission charges that 

Ardagh’s acquisition of Saint-Gobain 

would have eliminated head-to-head 

competition between the two merging 

firms, which are the second- and thirdlargest U.S. glass container 

manufacturers in the relevant product 

markets. Brewers and distillers have 

reaped substantial benefits from the 

rivalry between the two, often playing 

one against the other in supply 

negotiations. 

Once a prima facie showing of 

competitive harm is made, the 

Commission will consider evidence 

from the parties of verifiable, mergerspecific efficiencies that could offset 

this harm.5 In highly concentrated 

markets with high barriers to entry, as 

here, the parties can rebut the evidence 

of harm only with evidence of 

‘‘extraordinary efficiencies.’’ 6

Efficiencies represent an important 

aspect of the Commission’s merger 

analysis, with a recent study showing 

that over a ten-year period 37 of 48 

closed investigations involved internal 

staff memoranda examining 

efficiencies.7 Similarly, a recent survey 

analyzing evidence considered by 

Commission staff prior to issuing 

second requests concluded that staff 

credited parties’ detailed efficiency 

claims ‘‘[i]n most cases,’’ even if they 

proved insufficient to offset competitive 

concerns about the transaction.8

In this matter, many of Ardagh’s 

proffered synergies were not mergerspecific and could have been achieved 

absent the acquisition. For instance, the 

parties claimed the merger would allow 

them to reduce overhead within the 

Saint-Gobain organization. However, 

this claim related to the staffing of the 

current Saint-Gobain organization alone 

and is separate from any additional 

savings to be reaped from eliminating 

staff positions made redundant by the 

combination of Ardagh and SaintGobain. Thus, the claim is not merger 

specific. In addition, Ardagh made 

broad claims of additional operational 

efficiencies, and likely would have 

achieved some. However, the parties put 

forward insufficient evidence showing 

that the level of synergies that could be 

substantiated and verified would 

outweigh the clear evidence of 

consumer harm. 

For these reasons, we respectfully 

disagree with Commissioner Wright’s 

conclusion that there is no reason to 

believe the transaction violates Section 

7 of the Clayton Act. We also disagree 

with Commissioner Wright’s suggestion 

that the Commission imposed an 

unduly high evidentiary standard in 

analyzing the parties’ efficiency claims 

here and believe he overlooks several 

important points in his analysis. We are 

mindful of our responsibility to weigh 

appropriately all evidence relevant to a 

transaction and, moreover, understand 

our burden of proof before a trier of fact. 

Commissioner Wright expresses 

concern that competitive effects are 

estimated whereas efficiencies must be 

‘‘proven,’’ potentially creating a 

‘‘dangerous asymmetry’’ from a 

consumer welfare perspective.9 We 

disagree. Both competitive effects and 

efficiencies analyses involve some 

degree of estimation. This is a necessary 

consequence of the Clayton Act’s role as 

an incipiency statute. In addition, while 

competitive effects data and information 

tends to be available from a variety of 

sources, the data and information 

feeding efficiencies calculations come 

almost entirely from the merging 

parties. Indeed, the 2010 Merger 

Guidelines observe that ‘‘[e]fficiencies 

are difficult to verify and quantify, in 

part because much of the information 

relating to efficiencies is uniquely in the 

possession of the merging firms.’’ 10 The 

need for independent verification of this 

party data animates the requirement 

that, to be cognizable, efficiencies must 

be substantiated and verifiable. 

Courts have repeatedly emphasized 

that, ‘‘while reliance on the estimation 

and judgment of experienced executives 

about costs may be perfectly sensible as 

a business matter, the lack of a verifiable 

method of factual analysis resulting in 

the cost estimates renders them not 

cognizable.’’ 11 This is for good reason. 

Indeed, ‘‘if this were not so, then the 

efficiencies defense might well swallow 

the whole of Section 7 of the Clayton 

Act.’’ 12 The merger analysis the 

Commission undertook in this case is 

thus entirely consistent with the 2010 

Horizontal Merger Guidelines and 

established case law. 

Finally, we also believe the proposed 

consent order addresses the competitive 

concerns we have identified. The 

proposed order requires Ardagh to sell 

six manufacturing plants and related 

assets to a single buyer within six 

months, thereby creating an 

independent third competitor that fully 

replaces the competition that would 

have been lost in both the beer and 

spirits glass container markets had the 

merger proceeded unchallenged. In 

sum, we have ample reason to believe 

that the proposed merger was 

anticompetitive and without 

appropriate efficiency justification, and 

that the proposed remedy will maintain 

competition in the market for glass 

containers for beer and spirits. We 

commend and thank Commission staff 

for their hard work on this matter. 

By direction of the Commission, 

Commissioner Wright dissenting. 

Donald S. Clark, 

Secretary. 

Dissenting Statement of Commissioner 

Joshua D. Wright 

The Commission has voted to issue a 

Complaint and Decision & Order 

(‘‘Order’’) against Ardagh Group 

(‘‘Ardagh’’) to remedy the allegedly 

anticompetitive effects of Ardagh’s 

proposed acquisition of Saint-Gobain 

Containers Inc. and Compagnie de 

Saint-Gobain (jointly, ‘‘St. Gobain’’). I 

dissented from the Commission’s 

decision because the evidence is 

insufficient to provide reason to believe 

Ardagh’s acquisition will substantially 

lessen competition in glass containers 

manufactured and sold to beer brewers 

and spirits distillers in the United 

States, in violation of Section 7 of the 

Clayton Act. FTC staff and their 

economic expert should be commended 

for conducting a thorough investigation 

of this matter, working diligently to 

develop and analyze a substantial 

quantity of documentary and empirical 

evidence, and providing thoughtful 

analyses of the transaction’s potential 


ehiers on DSK2VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
22140 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 76 / Monday, April 21, 2014 / Notices 

1U.S. Dep’t of Justice & Fed. Trade Comm’n, 

Horizontal Merger Guidelines § 6.1 (2010), available 

at http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/guidelines/

hmg-2010.html [hereinafter Merger Guidelines]. 2 Id. 

3Although coordinated effects may be more likely 

with two rather than three key competitors, I do not 

find evidence sufficient to conclude coordination is 

likely. For example, I find that prices are 

individually negotiated and not particularly 

transparent, and the incentive to cheat without 

detection would likely undermine a collusive 

outcome. In the ordinary course of business, 

competitive firms collect information and monitor 

one another’s behavior. There is no evidence that 

the information collected by firms in the glass 

container market is accurate or that coordination 

based upon that information has taken place to 

date. 

4Merger Guidelines § 10. 

5Merger Guidelines § 10 (‘‘In the Agencies’ 

experience, efficiencies are most likely to make a 

difference in merger analysis when the likely 

adverse competitive effects, absent the efficiencies, 

are not great.’’). It is sometimes argued, pointing to 

language in the Merger Guidelines that ‘‘efficiencies 

almost never justify a merger to monopoly or nearmonopoly,’’ that the Merger Guidelines rule out or 

render the burden facing merger parties practically 

insurmountable in the case of mergers to monopoly 

or ‘‘three-to-two’’ situations. In my view, this is a 

misreading of the Merger Guidelines in letter and 

spirit. The sentence prior notes that ‘‘efficiencies 

are most likely to make a difference in merger 

analysis when the likely adverse competitive 

effects, absent the efficiencies, are not great.’’ The 

Merger Guidelines’ reference to mergers to 

monopoly or near-monopoly are illustrations of 

cases in which likely adverse effects might be large. 

The Merger Guidelines themselves do not rule out 

an efficiencies defense when a merger with small 

anticompetitive effects, with any market structure, 

generates cognizable efficiencies that are sufficient 

to prevent the merger from being anticompetitive. 

Nor do the Merger Guidelines suggest that a merger 

in a market with many firms that exhibits 

significant unilateral price effects should face a less 

serious burden in order to establish an efficiencies 

defense. The Merger Guidelines’ more general shift 

toward effects over market structure is also 

consistent with this analysis and undermines the 

logic of a position that the comparison of 

anticompetitive harms to cognizable efficiencies 

should be conducted differently depending upon 

the number of firms in the relevant market. To the 

extent the Commission believes the judicial 

decisions cited in note 5 of their statement endorse 

the notion that extraordinary efficiencies are 

required to justify a merger to monopoly or duopoly 

even when the anticompetitive effects from that 

merger are small, this is the analytical equivalent 

of allowing the counting of the number of firms 

within a market to trump analysis of competitive 

effects. The Commission should reject that view as 

inconsistent with the goal of promoting consumer 

welfare. 

6See, e.g. Complaint, In the Matter of Ardagh 

Group S.A., F.T.C. Docket No. 9356 (June 28, 2013), 

available at http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/ 

documents/cases/2013/07/130701ardaghcmpt.pdf. 

competitive effects. Indeed, I agree with 

the Commission that there is evidence 

sufficient to give reason to believe the 

proposed transaction would likely result 

in unilateral price increases. After 

reviewing the record evidence, however, 

I concluded there is no reason to believe 

the transaction violates Section 7 of the 

Clayton Act because any potential 

anticompetitive effect arising from the 

proposed merger is outweighed 

significantly by the benefits to 

consumers flowing from the 

transaction’s expected cognizable 

efficiencies. It follows, in my view, that 

the Commission should close the 

investigation and allow the parties to 

complete the merger without imposing 

a remedy. 

I write separately today to explain my 

reasoning for my vote in the matter and 

to highlight some important issues 

presented by this transaction relating to 

the burden of proof facing merging 

parties seeking to establish cognizable 

efficiencies. 

I. Potential Anticompetitive Effects Are 

Small at Best Relative to Cognizable 

Efficiencies 

The Commission alleges both 

unilateral and coordinated price effects 

will arise from the proposed transaction. 

The economic logic of the unilateral 

effects theory is straightforward: If the 

merger combines the two glass 

manufacturers who are the most 

preferred for a set of customers, there is 

the potential for a price increase arising 

from the loss of competition between 

those two firms. This is because sales 

previously diverted to the next closest 

competitor in response to a price 

increase will now be internalized by the 

post-merger firm. When analyzing the 

potential for unilateral price effects, the 

2010 Merger Guidelines indicate the 

Agencies will consider ‘‘any reasonably 

available and reliable information,’’ 

including ‘‘documentary and 

testimonial evidence, win/loss reports 

and evidence from discount approval 

processes, customer switching patterns, 

and customer surveys.’’ 1 The Merger 

Guidelines also contemplate a number 

of quantitative analyses to facilitate the 

analysis of potential unilateral effects 

including calculating diversion ratios 

and the value of diverted sales. Where 

sufficient data are available, the Merger 

Guidelines indicate ‘‘the Agencies may 

construct economic models designed to 

quantify the unilateral price effects 

resulting from the merger.’’ 2 In my 

view, the totality of record evidence 

supports an inference—though a fragile 

one—that the merger is likely to result 

in very modest unilateral price effects at 

best. 

With respect to the potential 

coordinated price effects, I find 

successful coordination in this market 

highly unlikely.3 However, even if 

coordination was a more plausible 

concern, I am not persuaded record 

evidence is probative of the effects that 

would arise as a result of this merger. 

My view and analysis of the record 

evidence relied upon to assess the 

magnitude of any potential coordinated 

effects is that it is suspect and cannot 

identify price differences attributable to 

changes in post-merger incentives to 

coordinate that would result from the 

proposed transaction rather than other 

factors. In addition, even if coordinated 

effects were likely, any estimated 

expected effect would need to be 

discounted by a probability of 

successful coordination that is less than 

one. 

In summary, given the totality of the 

available evidence, I am persuaded that 

the proposed transaction is likely to 

generate, at best, small unilateral price 

effects. 

The key question in determining 

whether the proposed transaction is 

likely to violate Section 7 of the Clayton 

Act is thus whether any cognizable 

efficiencies ‘‘likely would be sufficient 

to reverse the merger’s potential to harm 

customers in the relevant market.’’ 4 The 

2010 Merger Guidelines and standard 

cost-benefit principles teach that 

efficiencies should matter most when 

competitive effects are small.5 The 

Commission’s view of the record 

evidence is apparent in the Complaint, 

which alleges that ‘‘nearly all’’ of the 

efficiencies proffered by the parties are 

non-cognizable.6 However, my own 

review of the record evidence leads me 

to disagree with that conclusion. In fact, 

I find that given reasonable 

assumptions, cognizable efficiencies are 

likely to be substantial and more than 

sufficient to offset any anticompetitive 

price increase. While reasonable minds 

can differ with respect to the magnitude 

of cognizable efficiencies in this case, I 

do not find the allegation of zero or 

nearly zero efficiencies plausible. 

Indeed, my own analysis of the record 

evidence suggests expected cognizable 

efficiencies are up to six times greater 

than any likely unilateral price effects. 

The relative magnitude of the expected 

cognizable efficiencies set forth is 

dispositive of the matter under my own 

analysis. 

II. When is there an efficiencies defense 

at the FTC? 

I would like to highlight some 

important issues presented by this 

transaction as they relate to how the 

Commission analyzes parties’ 

efficiencies claims, and in particular, 

whether the burden of proof facing 

parties seeking to establish cognizable 

efficiencies is or should be meaningfully 

different than the burden facing the 

agency in establishing that a proposed 

merger is likely to substantially lessen 

competition. 


ehiers on DSK2VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 76 / Monday, April 21, 2014 / Notices 22141 

7Merger Guidelines § 10. 

8See, e.g., United States v. Baker Hughes, Inc., 

908 F.2d 981 (D.C. Cir. 1990). 9See Merger Guidelines § 10. 

10Statement of the Commission, In the Matter of 

Ardagh Group S.A., Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc., 

and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, File No. 131–0087 

(April 11, 2014) (‘‘We also disagree with 

Commissioner Wright’s suggestion that the 

Commission imposed an unduly high evidentiary 

standard in analyzing the parties’ efficiency 

claims’’). 

11The 2006 Merger Guidelines Commentary 

provides some guidance on efficiencies, but offer 

little guidance on the interpretation of these 

provisions and the type of substantiation required. 

U.S. Dep’t of Justice & Fed. Trade Comm’n, 

Commentary on the Horizontal Merger Guidelines 

(Mar. 2006), available at http://www.justice.gov/atr/ 

public/guidelines/215247.htm#44. 

12See, e.g., Michael B. Bernstein & Justin P. 

Hedge, Maximizing Efficiencies: Getting Credit 

Where Credit Is Due, Antitrust Source, Dec. 2012, 

available at http://www.americanbar.org/content/ 

dam/aba/publishing/antitrust_source/ 

dec12_hedge_12_20f.authcheckdam.pdf. 

13 Daniel A. Crane, Rethinking Merger 

Efficiencies, 110 Mich. L. Rev. 347, 386–87 (2011). 

Professor Crane argues that ‘‘as a matter of both 

verbal formulation in the governing legal norms and 

observed practice of antitrust enforcement agencies 

and courts, the government is accorded greater 

evidentiary leniency in proving anticompetitive 

effects than the merging parties are in proving 

offsetting efficiencies,’’ id. at 348, and rejects a 

variety of justifications for asymmetrical treatment 

of merger costs and benefits. 

14Malcolm B. Coate, Efficiencies in Merger 

Analysis: An Institutionalist View, 13 Sup. Ct. Econ. 

Rev. 230 (2005). 

My view is that the burden facing the 

agency with respect to the likelihood of 

anticompetitive effects should be in 

parity to that faced by the parties with 

respect to efficiencies. I recognize that 

this view is at least superficially in 

tension with the 2010 Merger 

Guidelines, which appear to embrace an 

asymmetrical approach to analyzing 

harms and benefits. Indeed, the 2010 

Merger Guidelines declare that ‘‘the 

Agencies will not simply compare the 

magnitude of the cognizable efficiencies 

with the magnitude of the likely harm 

to competition absent the efficiencies.’’ 7

This tension is easily resolved in the 

instant case because the efficiencies 

substantially outweigh the potential 

harms, but it merits greater discussion. 

To begin with, it is important to 

define which issues are up for 

discussion and which are not with some 

precision. The issue is not whether the 

burden-shifting framework embedded 

within Section 7 of the Clayton Act is 

a useful way to structure economic and 

legal analysis of complex antitrust 

issues.8 It is. Nor is the pertinent 

question whether the parties properly 

bear the burden of proof on efficiencies. 

They do.9

The issues here are twofold. The first 

issue is whether the magnitude of the 

burden facing merging parties 

attempting to demonstrate cognizable 

efficiencies should differ from the 

burden the Commission must overcome 

in establishing the likelihood of 

anticompetitive effects arising from the 

transaction in theory. The second is 

whether the magnitudes of those 

burdens differ in practice. The 

Commission appears to answer the first 

question in the negative.10 With respect 

to the second question, the Commission 

points to some evidence that the Agency 

does in fact consider efficiencies claims 

when presented in many investigations. 

There is little dispute, however, that the 

Commission gives some form of 

consideration to efficiency claims; the 

relevant issue is over precisely how the 

Commission considers them. More 

specifically, must merging parties 

overcome a greater burden of proof on 

efficiencies in practice than does the 

FTC to satisfy its prima facie burden of 

establishing anticompetitive effects? 

This question, in my view, merits 

greater discussion. 

Even when the same burden of proof 

is applied to anticompetitive effects and 

efficiencies, of course, reasonable minds 

can and often do differ when identifying 

and quantifying cognizable efficiencies 

as appears to have occurred in this case. 

My own analysis of cognizable 

efficiencies in this matter indicates they 

are significant. In my view, a critical 

issue highlighted by this case is 

whether, when, and to what extent the 

Commission will credit efficiencies 

generally, as well as whether the burden 

faced by the parties in establishing that 

proffered efficiencies are cognizable 

under the Merger Guidelines is higher 

than the burden of proof facing the 

agencies in establishing anticompetitive 

effects. After reviewing the record 

evidence on both anticompetitive effects 

and efficiencies in this case, my own 

view is that it would be impossible to 

come to the conclusions about each set 

forth in the Complaint and by the 

Commission—and particularly the 

conclusion that cognizable efficiencies 

are nearly zero—without applying 

asymmetric burdens. 

Merger analysis is by its nature a 

predictive enterprise. Thinking 

rigorously about probabilistic 

assessment of competitive harms is an 

appropriate approach from an economic 

perspective. However, there is some 

reason for concern that the approach 

applied to efficiencies is deterministic 

in practice. In other words, there is a 

potentially dangerous asymmetry from a 

consumer welfare perspective of an 

approach that embraces probabilistic 

prediction, estimation, presumption, 

and simulation of anticompetitive 

effects on the one hand but requires 

efficiencies to be proven on the other. 

There is ample discretion in the 2010 

Merger Guidelines to allow for this 

outcome in practice. For example, the 

merger-specificity requirement could be 

interpreted narrowly to exclude any 

efficiency that can be recreated with any 

form of creative contracting. While the 

Merger Guidelines assert that Agencies 

‘‘do not insist upon a less restrictive 

alternative that is merely theoretical,’’ 

there is little systematic evidence as to 

how this requirement is applied in 

practice. Verifiability, on the other 

hand, could be interpreted to impose 

stricter burden of proof than the agency 

is willing to accept when it comes to 

predictions, estimates, presumptions, or 

simulations of anticompetitive effects. 

There is little guidance as to how these 

provisions of the Merger Guidelines 

ought to be interpreted.11 Neither is 

further guidance likely forthcoming 

from the courts given how infrequently 

mergers are litigated. None of this, of 

course, is to say that parties should not 

bear these burdens in practice. 

Efficiencies, like anticompetitive effects, 

cannot and should not be presumed into 

existence. However, symmetrical 

treatment in both theory and practice of 

evidence proffered to discharge the 

respective burdens of proof facing the 

agencies and merging parties is 

necessary for consumer-welfare based 

merger policy. 

There are legitimate and widespread 

concerns that this has not been the case. 

Academics, agency officials, and 

practitioners have noted that although 

efficiencies are frequently a significant 

part of the business rationale for a 

transaction, receiving credit for 

efficiencies in a merger review is often 

difficult.12 Professor Daniel Crane has 

analyzed the perceived asymmetries 

between competitive effects analysis 

and efficiencies discussed above and 

their implications for competition 

systems and consumer welfare.13 Others 

have pointed out that recent court cases 

reveal that ‘‘the efficiency defense faces 

an impossibly high burden.’’ 14

Moreover, testimony from senior agency 

officials recognize the potential costs of 

imposing an unnecessarily high burden 

of proof to demonstrate cognizable 

efficiencies and states that symmetrical 

treatment of the evidence as they related 

to efficiencies versus competitive effects 

is warranted. 

Placing too high a burden on the parties to 

quantify efficiencies and to show that they 

are merger-specific risks prohibiting 

transactions that would be efficiencyenhancing. On the other hand, we are not 


ehiers on DSK2VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES
22142 Federal Register / Vol. 79, No. 76 / Monday, April 21, 2014 / Notices 

15Statement of Kenneth Heyer on Behalf of the 

United States Department of Justice, Antitrust 

Modernization Commission Hearings on the 

Treatment of Efficiencies in Merger Enforcement 

(Nov. 17, 2005), available at http:// 

govinfo.library.unt.edu/amc/commission_hearings/ 

pdf/Statement-Heyer.pdf. 16 In a recent study examining agency analysis of 

efficiencies claims, an FTC economist and attorney 

found significant disparities. Malcolm B. Coate & 

Andrew J. Heimert, Merger Efficiencies at the 

Federal Trade Commission: 1997–2007 (2009), 

available at http://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/ 

documents/reports/merger-efficiencies-federaltrade-commission-1997%E2%80%932007/ 

0902mergerefficiencies.pdf. Coate and Heimert find 

that ‘‘BE staff endorsed 27 percent of the claims 

considered, while BC accepted significantly fewer 

(8.48 percent) of the claims considered during the 

studied period.’’ The disparity also applies to 

rejection of efficiencies claims. The Bureau of 

Economics rejected 11.9 percent of the claims, 

while the Bureau of Competition rejected a 

significantly higher 31.9 percent of claims. Id. at 26. 17For example, Professor Crane explains that ‘‘[i]f 

the government and merging parties were held to 

the same standard of proof—preponderance of the 

evidence, for example—then, conceptually, harms 

and efficiencies would be given equal weight 

despite the different allocations of burdens of 

proof.’’ In addition, ‘‘[i]f probabilities of harm are 

easier to demonstrate on an individualized basis 

than probabilities of efficiencies, even though in the 

aggregate both harms and efficiencies are similarly 

likely in the relevant categories of cases, then 

merger policy will display a bias in favor of theories 

of harm even if it adopts an explicit symmetry 

principle.’’ Crane, supra note 11, at 387–88. 

18See, e.g., Jan M. Rybnicek & Joshua D. Wright, 

Outside In or Inside Out?: Counting Merger 

Efficiencies Inside and Out of the Relevant Market, 

in 2 William E. Kovacic: An Antitrust Tribute— 

Liber Amicorum (2014) (forthcoming), available at 

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/ 

papers.cfm?abstract_id=2411270; Judd E. Stone & 

Joshua D. Wright, The Sound of One Hand 

Clapping: The 2010 Merger Guidelines and the 

Challenge of Judicial Adoption, 39 Rev. Indus. Org. 

145 (2011). 

able simply to take the parties’ word that the 

efficiencies they have identified will actually 

materialize. Ultimately, we evaluate evidence 

related to efficiencies under the same 

standard we apply to any other evidence of 

competitive effects.15

The lack of guidance in analyzing and 

crediting efficiencies has led to 

significant uncertainty as to what 

standard the Agency applies in practice 

to efficiency claims and led to 

inconsistent applications of Section 10 

of the Merger Guidelines, even among 

agency staff.16 In my view, standard 

microeconomic analysis should guide 

how we interpret Section 10 of the 2010 

Merger Guidelines, as it does the rest of 

the antitrust law. To the extent the 

Merger Guidelines are interpreted or 

applied to impose asymmetric burdens 

upon the agencies and parties to 

establish anticompetitive effects and 

efficiencies, respectively, such 

interpretations do not make economic 

sense and are inconsistent with a merger 

policy designed to promote consumer 

welfare.17 Application of a more 

symmetric standard is unlikely to allow, 

as the Commission alludes to, the 

efficiencies defense to ‘‘swallow the 

whole of Section 7 of the Clayton Act.’’ 

A cursory read of the cases is sufficient 

to put to rest any concerns that the 

efficiencies defense is a mortal threat to 

agency activity under the Clayton Act. 

The much more pressing concern at 

present is whether application of 

asymmetric burdens of proof in merger 

review will swallow the efficiencies 

defense. 

III. Conclusion 

There are many open and important 

questions with respect to the treatment 

of efficiencies at the Agencies. While 

the Agencies’ analytical framework 

applied to diagnosing potential 

anticompetitive effects got an important 

update with the 2010 Merger 

Guidelines, there remains significant 

room for improvement with respect to 

the aligning agency analysis of 

efficiencies with standard principles of 

economic analysis. Primary among these 

important questions is whether the 

burden of proof required to establish 

cognizable efficiencies should be 

symmetrical to the burden the Agencies 

must overcome to establish 

anticompetitive effects. In my view, 

issues such as out-of-market efficiencies 

and the treatment of fixed costs also 

warrant further consideration.18

For the reasons set forth in this 

statement, I conclude that the harms 

from the transaction are small at best 

and, applying a symmetric standard to 

assessing the expected benefits and 

harms of a merger, the expected 

cognizable efficiencies are substantially 

greater than the expected harms. 

Accordingly, I believe the merger as 

proposed would have benefitted 

consumers. As such, I cannot join my 

colleagues in supporting today’s consent 

order because I do not have reason to 

believe the transaction violates Section 

7 of the Clayton Act nor that a consent 

ordering divestiture is in the public 

interest. 

[FR Doc. 2014–08951 Filed 4–18–14; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6750–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Administration for Children and 

Families 

Submission for OMB Review; 

Comment Request 

Title: State Plan Child Support 

Collection. 

OMB No.: 0970–0017. 

Description: The Office of Child 

Support Enforcement has approved a 

IV–D state plan for each state. Federal 

regulations require states to amend their 

state plans only when necessary to 

reflect new or revised federal statutes or 

regulations or material change in any 

state law, organization, policy, or IV–D 

agency operations. The requirement for 

submission of a state plan and plan 

amendments for the Child Support 

Enforcement program is found in 

sections 452, 454, and 466 of the Social 

Security Act. 

Respondents: State IV–D Agencies. 

ANNUAL BURDEN ESTIMATES

Instrument Number of 

respondents 

Number of 

responses per 

respondent 

Average 

burden hours 

per response 

Total burden 

hours 

State Plan ........................................................................................................ 54 4 0.50 108

OCSE–21–U4 .................................................................................................. 54 4 0.25 54 

Estimated Total Annual Burden 

Hours: 162. 

Additional Information: Copies of the 

proposed collection may be obtained by 

writing to the Administration for 

Children and Families, Office of 

Planning, Research and Evaluation, 370 

L’Enfant Promenade SW., Washington, 

DC 20447, Attn: ACF Reports Clearance 

Officer. All requests should be 

identified by the title of the information 

collection. Email address: 

infocollection@acf.hhs.gov. 

OMB Comment: OMB is required to 

make a decision concerning the 

collection of information between 30 

and 60 days after publication of this 


ehiers on DSK2VPTVN1PROD with NOTICES