European Commission Merger Policy Speech Reflects Alignment With US Agency Policy, Pre-2021

Today's speech by Guillaume Loriot -- the EC's Deputy Director General for Mergers -- is worth a read. Without agreeing necessarily with all of the enforcement decisions described therein, it is striking how much the speech reminds me of those given by US antitrust officials back in the 1990s, 2000s, and much of the 2010s.

For most of that span, you could count on leaders of the US Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice's Antitrust Division -- regardless of administration -- to give speeches and publish articles evangelizing the US approach to merger policy to regulators in Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world. The rule of law; predictability in the process; tailoring remedies, including behavioral ones, to preserve competition as a way of allowing mergers that would unlock important efficiencies; a laser-like focus on the usefulness of the consumer welfare standard; and an avoidance of important but unrelated social issues such as employment levels