Security News > 2022 > January > US mergers doubled in 2021 so FTC and DoJ seek new guidelines to stop illegal ones

The US Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division are launching a joint public inquiry as a first step to modernising merger guidelines and preventing anticompetitive deals.

FTC chair Lina Khan said it was time for a merger review because the number of global deals reached in 2021 was the highest ever recorded - at a whopping $5.8 trillion - with the DoJ receiving twice the number of merger filings as in 2020.

The body said its hope was that the new merger guidelines would help it to better detect and prevent anticompetitive deals.

The DoJ and FTC said the agencies are "Particularly interested in aspects of competition the guidelines may underemphasize or neglect, such as labor market effects and non-price elements of competition like innovation, quality, potential competition," as well as "Specific examples of mergers that have harmed competition."

An overhaul of the merger guidelines likely signals a further crackdown on the industry.

The FTC and DoJ panel at the press conference declined to comment about Activision Blizzard, nor any other specific merger.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/01/19/ftc_doj_merger_guidelines/