Washington, D.C. — On the heels of a historic post-pandemic merger wave, and a recent joint Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice merger guideline rewriting initiative, the American Economic Liberties Project released a new report today, “Why Merger Policy Matters,” highlighting why the movement underway to rethink merger policy is key to leveling the playing field for businesses, consumers, and working people. 

“Antitrust regulators are currently in the midst of a transformational effort to reorient our economy toward a more competitive future,” said Erik Peinert, Research Manager at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Due to 40 years of bad merger policy, companies have been getting bigger and more powerful at the expense of everyone else, and 75% of industries have become more concentrated since the 1990s. While not all mergers are bad, the FTC and DOJ’s efforts to rewrite merger guidelines present a critical opportunity to crack down on deals that harm consumers, small businesses, and working people.” 

The new report comes as merger madness continues in corporate America. M&A activity reached an all-time high of $5.8 trillion in 2021. Just in the past few weeks, there’s been new consolidation in the airline industry, the adjudication of older merger cases in book publishing and health care, and a continuation of Amazon’s frightening, yet unsurprising strategy to gobble up more data via acquisition of iRobot (makers of Roomba) and One Medical. Since receiving nearly 6,000 public comments and hosting public listening forums with concerned citizens and business owners across a wide range of industries, the FTC and DOJ have been hard at work revamping the merger guidelines to address the merger frenzy andfoster fair competition — with an announcement  expected in the coming months. 

The new report lays out the disastrous affects mergers have on wages, prices, innovation, and entrepreneurship. It provides examples of harmful high-profile mergers and explains why the FTC and DOJ’s Antitrust Division decision to reexamine these little known, yet highly important guidelines could fundamentally alter whether and how corporations build and exercise power. The report also features Economic Liberties’ full 50-page comment to the FTC and DOJ, which meticulously details our recommendations for undoing a generation of bad merger policy and vigorously combattingcorporate monopolies.

Read the full report, Why Merger Policy Matter, here. 

Learn more about Economic Liberties here. 

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