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Antitrust Keyed to Areeda, 8th Ed.
United States v. H & R Block, Inc.
Citation:
833 F. Supp. 2d 36 (2011)Facts
H&R Block, the second-largest provider of DDIY tax preparation products with a 15.6% market share, sought to acquire TaxACT, the third-largest provider with a 12.8% market share. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, was the market leader with a 62.2% share. TaxACT had historically been an aggressive competitor in the DDIY market, pioneering free product offerings and maintaining low prices. The DDIY market was already highly concentrated, with an HHI of 4,291. The proposed merger would increase the HHI by approximately 400 points to 4,691 and would result in Intuit and H&R Block controlling approximately 90% of the DDIY market. H&R Block’s stated post-merger plan was to maintain both the H&R Block and TaxACT brands, with H&R Block focusing on higher-priced products and TaxACT focusing on lower-priced products. The government argued that the merger would eliminate head-to-head competition between H&R Block and TaxACT and would make anticompetitive coordination between H&R Block and Intuit substantially more likely.
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