FTC Begins New Era by Restoring Common Sense Rules to Block Bad Deals

FTC Open Commission Meeting, October 21, 2021. Source: United States Federal Trade Commission, www.ftc.gov.

WASHINGTON— The Federal Trade Commission has reinstated the Prior Approval Policy, 26 years after the agency repealed the long-established practice of restricting future acquisitions for merging parties that pursue anticompetitive mergers.

Once again, as was the case until 1995, the FTC’s merger enforcement orders will require corporations that have been caught violating the law to obtain prior approval from the agency before closing any future transaction in the market in which a violation was alleged.

In response, Barry Lynn, Executive Director of the Open Markets Institute, issued the following statement:

“America’s monopoly crisis was not inevitable. Policymakers’ choices paved the way for decades of merger mania and dangerous concentrations of private power and control. One of these wrong-headed policy choices was the FTC’s 1995 repeal of the Prior Approval Policy.

“The FTC’s restored Prior Approval Policy ensures that taxpayer dollars are not wasted on merger enforcement against recidivist corporations that attempt anticompetitive, illegal mergers in the same markets over and over again.

“With this order, the FTC sends a clear message that it will not tolerate repeated violations of the Clayton Act. The FTC's reinstatement of the Prior Approval Policy is an important step to getting America back on track, and to protecting individual liberty and democracy from concentrated private power.”

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