The Antitrust Division of the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) launched an initiative to strengthen enforcement against illegal mergers.
Justice Department officials say that many industries across the economy are becoming more concentrated and less competitive, which hurts consumers, workers, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. With a recent surge in merger activity, this trend is likely to continue. To address the concerns, the Justice Department and the FTC are soliciting public input on ways to modernize federal merger guidelines to better identify and prevent illegal, anti-competitive deals.
“Our country depends on competition to drive progress, innovation, and prosperity,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division said. “We need to understand why so many industries have too few competitors and to think carefully about how to ensure our merger enforcement tools are fit for purpose in the modern economy.”
“Illegal mergers can inflict a host of harms, from higher prices and lower wages to diminished opportunity, reduced innovation, and less resiliency,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “This inquiry launched by the FTC and DOJ is designed to ensure that our merger guidelines accurately reflect modern market realities and equip us to forcefully enforce the law against unlawful deals. Hearing from a broad set of market participants, especially those who have experienced first-hand the effects of mergers and acquisitions, will be critical to our efforts.”
The Justice Department and FTC are charged with enforcing antitrust laws, which were created to protect competition and prevent increased consolidation. This new inquiry seeks comments on developments in the modern economy and new evidence of mergers’ effects on competition to inform potential revisions to the guidelines.
Some of the specific areas of inquiry on which the agencies are seeking public input and information include purpose and scope of merger review; presumptions that certain transactions are anticompetitive; use of market definition in analyzing competitive effects; threats to potential and nascent competition; impact of monopsony power, including in labor markets; and unique characteristics of digital markets.
The comment period is open for 60 days. They must be submitted to regulations.gov and must be received no later than March 21.