U.S. States Challenge DOJ Settlement in HPE–Juniper Merger

On January 30, 2025 the Justice Department sued to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s proposed acquisition of Juniper Networks, a transaction valued at $14 billion. After months of litigation the parties reached a settlement in late June 2025 that allowed the merger to proceed while proposing remedies to address competition concerns. The government and the companies filed a proposed final judgment under the Tunney Act so that a federal judge could review whether the negotiated remedy served the public interest.

The remedy package required HPE to divest its Instant On campus and branch wireless business and to license Juniper’s Mist AIOps software to one or more buyers, measures intended to preserve rivals’ access to key technology. HPE maintained that these steps would protect customers and innovation, while critics described the remedy as unconventional and potentially insufficient.

A coalition of state attorneys general sought to intervene and to obtain targeted discovery about the settlement’s negotiation, asserting that lobbyist influence and unusual decision-making merited closer judicial scrutiny. The Northern District of California granted permissive intervention, and Judge P. Casey Pitts set a status hearing for March 23, 2026 to address scheduling and requests for live testimony.

The Department of Justice has argued that live witness testimony is unnecessary given the existing record, and HPE has opposed delaying the Tunney Act review. If the court orders additional evidence or unwinds elements of the settlement, it would test long-standing limits on Tunney Act authority and set a notable precedent for merger reviews. Observers will watch the court's decision closely.