KKR has agreed to pay $250mn to settle the US Department of Justice’s lawsuit alleging the private equity firm repeatedly failed to properly file documents with the federal government related to buyouts between 2021 and 2022. The penalty is the largest imposed over violations of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, the federal law that requires acquirers to provide financial information of merger parties to regulators including the Federal Trade Commission and the justice department before closing deals. The sum was more than 20 times any previous penalty imposed under the Act, said associate attorney-general Stanley Woodward.

KKR said it strongly disagreed with the lawsuit’s claims after the agreement was announced on Wednesday. "We believe that our firm acted in good faith at all times under our prior filing process, and it was consistent with industry practice. However, we determined that ongoing litigation would be a significant distraction for our organisation, and we are pleased to put this behind us," it said in a statement. KKR said the civil penalty would have no financial impact on the firm or any investors and would be fully reimbursed by external law firms.

The US sued KKR in January last year in one of the final efforts by the DoJ’s antitrust unit under former president Joe Biden to crack down on what it regarded as anti-competitive private equity dealmaking just days before Donald Trump took office. Prosecutors alleged that KKR altered documents, failed to submit filings or "systematically" omitted required documents across at least 16 transactions between 2021 and 2022. The lawsuit followed earlier settlement discussions between the Biden DoJ and KKR that failed.

The private equity firm then countersued the department. "The sole purpose of the Antitrust Division’s threatened actions is to make an example of KKR and thereby chill merger and acquisition activity," the firm wrote in its January 2025 complaint. The DoJ said that KKR was required to make more than 100 pre-merger filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act since 2021 and was "familiar" with its requirements. Federal authorities had occasionally targeted Wall Street investors over HSR violations, enforcement activity that includes two different small settlements the US government struck with Dan Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point over stakes the firm had taken in Yahoo and Dow Du Pont.

KKR co-founder Henry Kravis is a longtime donor to Republican politicians and had donated $1mn to the Trump inauguration in 2017.