Praise and Constructive Criticism: The Pro-Enforcement Community Weighs in on the Draft Merger Guidelines

Ruled by Reason

On this episode of Ruled by Reason, AAI’s Kathleen Bradish talks with Open Market’s Sandeep Vaheesan and the American Economic Liberties Project’s Erik Peinert about the pro-enforcement community’s views on the draft Merger Guidelines recently released by the FTC and DOJ. This is a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion about how the proposed changes succeed in advancing better merger enforcement, where they fall short, and what beneficial modifications could be made to the final version.

Using each organization’s comments to the draft Guidelines as the jumping off point, Bradish talks with Vaheesan and Peinert about the proper role of guidelines, the importance of structural presumptions, the differences between treatment of vertical and horizontal mergers, and the viability of the efficiencies defense. The discussion concludes with thoughts about how to maximize the practical impact and the long-term viability of the Guidelines.