Today, Dr. Diana Moss, Vice President and Director of Competition Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), provided comments to the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice on the draft Merger Guidelines. The proposed revisions to the antitrust agencies’ merger guidelines are the seventh substantive version since they were first issued 55 years ago. Merger enforcement is widely considered one of the first lines of defense against rising market concentration, which can harm consumers, workers, and small businesses.
“An essential part of strong merger enforcement is the clarity, predictability, and administrability of U.S. antitrust agencies’ guidance on merger reviews. While the proposed revisions commendably strive to invigorate merger enforcement, PPI recommends a number of ways the guidelines can be improved to ensure that consumers, workers, and smaller businesses benefit from the competition that vigorous merger enforcement is designed to promote,” said Diana Moss.
PPI’s comments highlight features in the draft guidelines that could create uncertainty for the government, merging parties, and courts. For example, the guidelines should give more “balance” to the roles of legal doctrine and economic, technical, and business analysis that enables thorough and accurate merger review. Moreover, the guidelines should provide real-world examples to aid the government, merging parties, and courts in evaluating what anticompetitive outcomes the guidelines seek to avoid.
PPI’s comments also emphasize that the guidelines should clarify that an “effects-based” analysis under the prevailing consumer welfare standard is essential for assessing the potential risks of higher prices, lower quality, and less innovation from harmful mergers. Finally, the guidelines should avoid operationalizing the goals of any particular ideological perspective, otherwise they are susceptible to withdrawal and disruption at a future date.
Read PPI’s full recommendations here.
The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C., with offices in Brussels, Berlin and the United Kingdom. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org.
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Media Contact: Amelia Fox, afox@ppionline.org
