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What the Aon-WTW deal’s collapse says about US merger law; and a key appointment at Brazil’s CADE
30 July 2021 00:00
Duration: 24:12
In the biggest merger regulatory challenge to hit the US under the Biden Administration, insurance broker Aon announced that it would walk away from its proposed union with Willis Towers Watson. The collapse of the deal amounted to a victory for the US Department of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland, with Aon concluding that the opposition to the deal was just too great to proceed. It was a victory predicated on a conventional interpretation of the law — the same old-school rules that had previously been disparaged by President Joe Biden. Also on the podcast this week: How the appointment of Alexandre Cordeiro to the Brazilian competition authority’s tribunal is likely to affect CADE’s operations in coming years.
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Editorial Team
James Panichi Senior Editor, Asia Pacific

James, an Australian journalist with over 25 years’ experience in print and electronic media, helps to oversee MLex’s coverage of regulatory risk in Asia, with special attention to Australia and New Zealand. In 2016, James was appointed as MLex’s managing editor for continental Europe, overseeing the Brussels bureau’s coverage of EU regulatory affairs and managing a team of 16 journalists in Brussels and Geneva. Previously James worked for the European Voice newspaper, before joining the... Read more
Ana Paula Candil Senior Correspondent, Latin America

Ana Paula joined MLex in Brazil in 2014 writing about antitrust investigations and merger reviews. Prior to that, she worked for several trade publications and in TV. She lived in Washington DC, where she worked for Al Jazeera English in 2010. She studied journalism and holds a postgraduate diploma in International Business Management from the George Brown College in Toronto and a Master of Business Administration diploma in government relations from Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV).