The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have released draft guidelines related to reviewing company mergers.
The agencies are to assess the risk that a merger may lessen competition substantially or create a monopoly.
“To promote efficient review, for any given transaction the Agencies may limit their analysis to any one Guideline or subset of Guidelines that most readily demonstrates the risks to competition from the transaction,” the draft guidelines read.
The draft contains 13 guidelines to use when assessing the risk of a merger. Some of the guidelines include: mergers should not significantly increase concentration in highly concentrated markets, vertical mergers should not create market structures that foreclose competition and mergers should not otherwise substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. The guidelines replace various versions issued since the first Merger Guidelines in 1928.
