Seventeen Years Later: Thoughts on Revising the Horizontal Merger Guidelines
Antitrust Source, October 2009
21 Pages Posted: 28 Oct 2009
Date Written: October 1, 2009
Abstract
In September 2009, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice announced plans to explore the possibility of updating the Horizontal Merger Guidelines. The agencies plan to solicit comments on particular topics and to hold a series of public workshops, with a goal of completing the review in mid-2010.
The agencies’ announcement was a welcome development. In the seventeen years since the last major revision to the Guidelines, there have been significant advancements in agency practice, merger economics, and federal court case law. This article describes twelve ways that the Guidelines should be revised to better reflect current agency practice, to incorporate aspects of merger analysis absent from the 1992 Guidelines, and to clarify certain aspects of the 1992 Guidelines.
Keywords: Merger Guidelines, Merger Enforcement Guidelines, Antitrust, FTC, DOJ
JEL Classification: K21, L40, L41, L49
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation