More Antitrust News, Still None of it Good

In a joint press release, the FTC and Antitrust Division announced they are launching a review of the Merger Guidelines so the agencies "review mergers with the skepticism the law demands" in order to "determine if they are too permissive." Richard Powers, the Acting Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust is a criminal lawyer by background and has no significant merger experience so it's fair to assume this initiative is being promoted by FTC Chair Lina Khan.

Merger Guidelines are often cited by courts for their persuasive authority but do not carry the force of law. They are influential because they reflect a fair view of current economic learning, reduced to an administrable set of principles to guide agency merger staffs and businesses alike. The current horizontal merger guidelines were published in 2010 so perhaps it is time for an update. What we see in the press release, however, is a strong signal that the agencies will not incorporate the latest economic literature, but rather take a hyper-aggressive enforcement posture based on a literal reading of a very old statute.

Merger guidelines will need to be backed by sound law and economics in order to persuade the federal courts. If this initiative reflects nothing more than ideologically driven hostility towards efficient transactions we will see a burst of enforcement activity, followed by legal sophistry about textualism, Brown Shoe, Von's, and other bad but not explicitly overturned precedent, followed by a well-deserved thrashing in the courts of appeal. 

I guess antitrust lawyers should settle in for the best of times/worst of times period, lots of activity but also hard for counselors and clients to plan transactions if enforcement decisions are untethered to the consumer welfare standard, without which enforcement decisions will necessarily be driven by broader policy goals or raw political calculations. I may be reading too much into a short press release and I hope I'm wrong about how bad this will get in the short term. I'm also grateful that the FTC has staggered terms for commissioners so Christine Wilson and Noah Feldman can continue to articulate sound, traditional enforcement principles and priorities.