Trump administration to continue Biden merger guidelines

The Trump administration on Tuesday said it will keep using strict guidelines adopted by the administration of former President Joe Biden to review proposed corporate mergers.

The decision to retain the guidelines — which are widely disliked by corporations — was detailed in a Department of Justice memo and a statement by Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson.

The decision is a victory for the populist, anti-corporate wing of the Trump administration, embodied by Vice President JD Vance.

Vance frequently found common ground with Biden’s FTC chair Lina Khan, who made anti-trust enforcement a centerpiece of the agency’s mission.

“Recent public commentary has raised the question of whether the Antitrust Division will abandon use of the 2023 Merger Guidelines,” Omeed Assefi, the acting assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s antitrust division.

But, “The Antitrust Division will continue to use the 2023 Merger Guidelines until further notice,” Assefi added.

Ferguson in his tweet wrote, “Today I informed staff that the 2023 FTC and DOJ’s joint 2023 Merger Guidelines are in effect and will serve as the framework for our agency’s merger-review analysis.”

“These guidelines build on previous guidelines and many decades of case law,” Ferguson wrote. “That stability is important for enforcement agencies and the business community.”

Ferguson also wrote,” The FTC has limited resources.”

“Rewriting guidelines after every election would be expensive and time-consuming. It would also be destabilizing. Enforcement agencies should avoid a wholesale change in guidelines with every new administration,” he wrote.

“Otherwise, the guidelines would become worthless to businesses and the courts. Firms must be able to make plans without worrying that guidelines are tossed away every four years. Courts will not rely on guidelines that are transparently partisan either.”

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