Publications

Last week, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission jointly released revised Horizontal Merger Guidelines.  The New Guidelines replace the 1992 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, which were last revised thirteen years ago.  The New Guidelines state that they are meant to “outline the principal analytical techniques, practices, and the enforcement policy of the [agencies] with respect to mergers and acquisitions involving actual or potential competitors (‘horizontal mergers’) under the federal antitrust laws.”  Although the revisions in the New Guidelines are largely evolutionary and in many cases merely reflect a codification of existing agency practice, some changes might lead the agencies to challenge mergers that would have been permitted in the past.  These include changes deemphasizing the importance of defining relevant markets and adopting new unilateral effects theories.  Whether these changes will actually lead to stricter enforcement is an open question.