The HPE matter was a horizontal merger challenge over whether the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company’s (“HPE”) proposed acquisition of Juniper Networks, Inc. (“Juniper”) would cause a Substantial Lessening of Competition and whether the Merger Efficiencies expected from the transaction would offset any potential competitive harm. In January 2024, HPE agreed to acquire Juniper for approximately $14 billion. HPE and Juniper were the second- and third-largest U.S. providers of enterprise-grade wireless local area network (“WLAN”) solutions, marketing their products under the HPE Aruba and Juniper Mist brands.
On January 30, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed suit under Section 7 of the Clayton Act to block the acquisition. The DOJ alleged that the merger would cause a Substantial Lessening of Competition in the U.S. market for enterprise-grade WLAN solutions by eliminating competition between HPE and Juniper and leaving market leader Cisco Systems and HPE with well over 70 percent of the market. According to the complaint, Juniper had used its Mist network-management platform and artificial-intelligence operations (AIOps) tools to grow rapidly and intensify price and innovation competition; losing that rivalry would threaten higher prices, reduced innovation, and fewer customer choices.
On behalf of HPE and Juniper, Professor Mark Zmijewski, supported by Keith Bockus and Erik Himan, submitted an expert report evaluating and verifying the cost savings and other Merger Efficiencies that HPE expected to obtain from the transaction.
On June 28, 2025, on the eve of trial, the DOJ and the parties settled, permitting the acquisition to proceed. Under the consent decree, HPE agreed to divest its global “Instant On” WLAN business to a DOJ-approved buyer within 180 days and to grant, through an auction, a perpetual worldwide license to Juniper’s AIOps for Mist source code to one or more DOJ-approved licensees. The transaction closed on July 2, 2025. The settlement followed clearance of the acquisition by the European Commission, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority, and additional antitrust authorities worldwide.