Revised U.S. Merger Guidelines To Remain Intact Under New Administration

New Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson and Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Omeed Assefi have separately announced that the U.S. antitrust agencies will continue to apply the merger guidelines adopted under the Biden administration as the framework for assessing mergers.

The guidelines were adopted in 2023 and amounted to a major shake-up in U.S. merger control policy.

They set out a lower concentration threshold for presuming the illegality of horizontal transactions. They also promote less traditional theories of harm, including the cumulative effects of serial acquisitions, the potential adverse impact of a deal on labor markets, and an expanded framework for assessing vertical mergers.