Washington, D.C. — Today at 5 pm EST, merging firms must submit a new filing form to antitrust agencies. In October, the FTC and Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division finalized a new rule for the Hart‑Scott‑Rodino form — a key pre-merger filing document that has not been updated since 1978 — to modernize and streamline the merger review process. The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“This change is long overdue,” said Matt Stoller, Research Director at the American Economic Liberties Project. “It requires big corporations and private equity funds who want to engage in big acquisitions to actually tell the government what they are doing. The result is that enforcers will more easily be able to challenge unfair mergers while quickly clearing mergers that pose no legal problem. It will also be shared with the Pentagon so they can understand the effect of mergers on the defense base.”

“Congratulations to Chair Andrew Ferguson and the entire Federal Trade Commission, as well as acting Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Omeed Assefi, for seeing this important achievement through,” Stoller added. “While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other powerful D.C. interests are opposed to the change, they will ultimately come to appreciate how it simplifies the merger process.”

Learn more about the importance of these new merger notification rules here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.