FTC and DOJ Issue Revised Horizontal Merger Guidelines for Comment

While the revised Guidelines de-emphasize the role of market definition in the FTC's and DOJ's analyses of transactions, they do not represent a significant departure from the merger review process the agencies currently undertake.

On April 20, 2010, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released for public comment a draft revision of the Horizontal Merger Guidelines (Guidelines). The Guidelines, first issued in 1992 and revised in 1997, describe the FTC's and U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ's) methodology for analyzing the likely competitive impact of mergers and acquisitions (including partial acquisitions) between competitors. The revisions, which the FTC and DOJ jointly undertook following a series of public workshops over the past six months, aim to represent how the agencies currently review transactions.