Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) approval of Intercontinental Exchange Inc’s (ICE) $11 billion acquisition of Ellie Mae, a technology platform for the mortgage finance industry.

“Allowing a single platform to dominate origination and data services in the $16 trillion mortgage market is a recipe for trouble,” said Graham Steele, Senior Fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project and Director of the Corporations and Society Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “By waving through this acquisition, the FTC is giving one company significant power over people looking to buy a home and community banks trying to serve their customers. There are simply no efficiencies that can justify exposing homeowners to harms like data breaches or a repeat of the robo-signing and foreclosure fraud scandals by concentrating so much vital information in the hands of a single entity. This is yet more merger the next administration should consider undoing.”

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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Economic Liberties works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. AELP 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.