Key facts
- DoorDash's internal document answers a question on connecting with Instacart employees on LinkedIn with "Not at this time."
- The document tells employees not to accept LinkedIn connection requests from Instacart employees.
- DoorDash and Instacart must continue to operate separately until the deal closes, the document says.
- Antitrust lawyer David Gelfand said merging companies are supposed to act like independent competitors until the deal closes.
- Several M&A experts told Business Insider they had not heard of employees being barred from connecting on social media during a deal.
- DoorDash did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
DoorDash told employees not to request or accept new LinkedIn connections with Instacart employees while its $17 billion purchase of Instacart is pending, according to an internal question-and-answer document the company filed with the SEC on Thursday.
Asked "Can I connect with Instacart employees on LinkedIn?", the document answers "Not at this time" and adds: "Please do not request any new connections with any Instacart employees on LinkedIn, even if you have a prior relationship." The document also says the two companies must continue to operate separately until the deal closes. DoorDash and Instacart said they expect the purchase to close at the end of 2027 or in the first half of 2028.
Companies planning a merger or acquisition often take steps to prevent so-called gun-jumping, or behaving as if the deal is already done, which can include sharing competitively sensitive information, coordinating on pricing or bidding, or discussing jobs without authorization. "You're supposed to continue to act like independent competitors until the deal closes," said David Gelfand, senior counsel specializing in antitrust law at Cleary Gottlieb and a former deputy assistant attorney general for litigation in the antitrust division of the US Department of Justice.
Chris Selland, a lecturer at Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business, said the restriction could be aimed at preventing brain drain: discussions between employees could lead one company to hire from the other, bringing customer contacts along. "That could blow up the whole agreement," he said.
Several M&A experts told Business Insider they had never heard of employees at companies undergoing a deal being barred from connecting on LinkedIn or any other social media platform. William Kovacic, a former FTC chairman and director of George Washington University's Competition Law Center, said whether the companies are acting sensibly or imposing an overly broad restriction on ordinary employee behavior is "a great antitrust examination question." DoorDash did not immediately respond to a request for comment.