Law360, New York (October 7, 2015, 11:20 AM EDT) -- The Federal Trade Commission suffered a rare loss when, on Sept. 24, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio denied its request for a preliminary injunction, despite having accepted the FTC's "actual potential entrant" theory.[1] In connection with its review of the FTC's challenge to Steris Corporation's $1.9 billion acquisition of Synergy Health PLC, the court held that the FTC had failed to meet its burden of proof of showing that, absent the planned deal, the potential competitor would have entered the U.S. market. These decisions could be harbingers of the agencies' greater willingness to aggressively challenge transactions involving potential competitors, or of the courts' unquestioning acceptance of the actual potential entrant theory, or simply an interesting result limited to the facts of the case. It is most likely the latter. Regardless, companies considering acquisitions of potential competitors should do what they can to mitigate their antitrust risk....