Biden's New Merger Guidelines Aim to Roll Back Pro-Monopoly Policies of Reagan Era

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'The new merger guidelines send a clear signal to corporate America: no more free passes on illegal mergers,' said one advocate.​

,"antitrust cases hinge on consumer prices and so-called 'efficiency' within businesses, rather than antitrust law's traditional role of protecting workers and small businesses from abusive or anti-competitive tactics by powerful firms.

"Older models of economics and antitrust enforcement have not captured key merger harms and legal violations, failing to see problems with a host of mega-mergers like Google-DoubleClick, Live Nation-Ticketmaster, CVS-Caremark-Aetna, and American-U.S. Airways," said Stoller."These mistakes have suppressed worker pay, embrittled our supply chains, and undermined industrial policy.

Stacy Mitchell, co-executive director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, welcomed the Biden administration's effort to unravel Reagan-era merger guidelines. "The 1982 guidelines, which were embraced by subsequent Democratic and Republican administrations, ushered in waves of consolidation that have stripped Americans of their basic economic freedoms, left many industries brittle and weakened by a lack of competition, and imperiled our democracy by allowing a few corporations to assume an extraordinary degree of control over our lives and communities," said Mitchell.

"For these reasons, today's release of new draft guidelines by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice is a moment to be welcomed by all Americans," Mitchell added."This draft heralds a long overdue end to the dangerous and destructive approach of the last four decades.

 

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