Exclusive: Republican lawmakers in Congress are stepping up oversight of how the Federal Trade Commission and the agency's chair, Lina Khan, scrutinized a pair of high-profile energy sector mergers, arguing the regulator was favoring a political agenda over genuine competitive concerns. House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Sen.
The letter said the FTC's consent decrees are used to settle claims of wrongdoing and impose requirements on a company when the agency "has reason to believe" the party to the consent decree has violated antitrust. However, in the case of the Exxon-Pioneer and Chevron-Hess mergers, the FTC "had no reason to believe the proposed transactions would harm competition," Jordan and Lee wrote.
To be clear, these consent decrees by the FTC are not competition remedies to correct for merger specific harms – the FTC's actions are only a headline-grabbing tactic that targets disfavored entities and placates political allies. These merger did not present any anitcompetitive concerns, thus the FTC's consent decrees are unwarranted and did nothing to enforce the Clayton Act or protect consumers from anticompetitive harm.