On July 19, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) jointly released a new draft of Merger Guidelines, which explain how the federal agencies review, decide to further scrutinize, and in some cases attempt to block mergers and acquisitions. The 13 new guidelines in the 51-page document present resistance against prospective mergers far more aggressive than positions taken by authorities for decades. They presume that “big is bad,” using simplistic measures of the number and size of firms in a market as grounds to delay and potentially block mergers.
Officially in response to a 2021 executive order
