DOJ and FTC Merger Guideline Review Builds on Move to Rethink Operating Code of U.S. Economy

Open Markets encourages efforts to create a more fair, safe, and forward looking country

WASHINGTON— The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission announced plans to revise their “merger guidelines” at a joint press conference this afternoon.

This action builds on President Biden’s decision last July to order his administration to abandon the dangerous ‘consumer welfare’ philosophy of antimonopoly law imposed by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s. This new process promises to deliver a complete rethinking of the operating code of the U.S. economy of the past four decades.

In response, Barry Lynn, executive director at Open Markets Institute, issued the following statement:

“Today the DOJ and FTC began to orient the U.S. government once again towards the North Star of liberty and democracy. The government’s antimonopoly guidelines provide the single most important statement of how regulators view the nature of power and how to use antimonopoly law to achieve the purposes of our nation. The Open Markets institute looks forward to working with both the DOJ and FTC to rebuild our economy and society on a more fair, safe, and forward looking foundation.

“Today’s actions also strike a blow against the dangerous forms of faux science that have been used to justify the concentration of power and control over the American political economy. For forty years, this anti-Enlightenment approach to science has blinded enforcers to how monopolists directly threaten freedom of the press and freedom of expression, the security of the nation, the stability of our most basic industrial and financial systems, and the liberty to build better communities, better businesses, and better technologies.

“The American people repeatedly and resoundingly have expressed our fear of private monopoly and our intention to break or neutralize all concentrated private power. We hope today’s meeting marks a first step towards the restoration and strengthening of the true will of the American people as expressed through Congress in the clear language of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914.”

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Previously the Open Markets Institute joined with allies to demand new vertical merger guidelines. See the comment here.