Common Dreams - FTC-DOJ Merger Guidelines Aim to 'Restore Competition and Strengthen Democracy'

Common Dreams cited a statement from Open Markets Legal Director Sandeep Vaheesan that the new merger guidelines just released by the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission “put fealty to law front and center again.”

Antitrust campaigners and experts on Monday celebrated the Biden administration's new guidelines for mergers and acquisitions, which supporters say will "restore competition and strengthen democracy."

Open Markets Institute legal director Sandeep Vaheesan also praised the agencies behind the new guidelines, which he said "put fealty to law front and center again and seek to implement congressional intent, instead of their own ideological preferences."

"By relying on market share tests for deciding the legality of certain mergers, the new guidelines are more faithful to the Clayton Act than the 2010 horizontal merger guidelines were," Vaheesan explained. "They are also more in accord with empirical research on the effects of mergers and acquisitions, which finds that corporate consolidation can harm democratic balances and institutions, as well as workers, producers, and consumers."

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