The Trump administration has announced that it will continue using the merger rules and guidelines established during Joe Biden‘s presidency to review proposed corporate mergers.
Vice President J.D. Vance shares much common ground with Biden’s Federal Trade Commission chair, Lina Khan, who prioritized antitrust enforcement as a key focus of the agency’s mission. It’s a setback for Wall Street, which had been hoping for an increase in corporate consolidation under a more relaxed framework for evaluating proposed mergers, CNBC is reporting.
The current guidelines outline over a dozen criteria that the FTC and Department of Justice use to decide whether to challenge a merger. These include ensuring that mergers do not excessively increase concentration in already highly concentrated markets, do not eliminate significant competition between firms, and avoid vertical mergers that create market structures that block competition.