Tuesday, March 2, 2021 The recent decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Steves & Sons, Inc. v. JELD-WEN, Inc., 2021 WL 630521 (4th Cir. Feb. 18, 2021), is noteworthy for its affirmance of the trial court’s unusual grant of the equitable remedy of divestiture in a private antitrust suit brought by a customer challenging a merger of competing suppliers. That challenge was brought under Section 16 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 26, and followed a merger consummated four years before the plaintiff’s complaint. While divestiture is a commonly sought remedy in government enforcement actions brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Fourth Circuit observed that “private suits seeking divestiture are rare and, to our knowledge, no court had ever ordered divestiture in a private suit before this case.” Steves & Sons, Inc., 2021 WL 630521, at *5; see also id. at *29 (noting that, while the Fourth Circuit had “not previously had occasion to speak on the issue of divestiture sought by a private plaintiff under Section 16 of the Clayton Act, . . . other courts have considered such requests, and none has yet encountered a case in which divestiture was an appropriate award,” and noting that “courts have been reluctant to order divestiture at the behest of a private plaintiff after consummation of the allegedly anticompetitive merger”) (Rushing, C.J., concurring).