The Trump administration announced that the US will continue using former President Joe Biden’s strict corporation merging rule.
Although these 2023 guidelines are widely unfavoured by several companies, they are largely supported by the populist, anti-corporate wing, such as Vice President JD Vance, and Biden’s Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan.
Besides the corporation, this decision is also negatively impacting Wall Street which has been looking for more companies merging under a loosened framework.
According to these guidelines, the FTC and Department of Justice can block the merging process if they deem that certain criteria are not met. For example, the merging company must not add more companies into the concentrated markets or become a monopoly in that market.
The current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson was tasked to detail this decision before he commented on the expensive and time-consuming process of rewriting the guidelines every election. He also stated that FTC has limited resources and the rewriting process could create a destabilization.
