Seventeen Years Later: Thoughts on Revising the Horizontal Merger Guidelines

Abstract:     
In September 2009, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice announced plans to explore the possibility of updating the Horizontal Merger Guidelines. The agencies plan to solicit comments on particular topics and to hold a series of public workshops, with a goal of completing the review in mid-2010.

The agencies’ announcement was a welcome development. In the seventeen years since the last major revision to the Guidelines, there have been significant advancements in agency practice, merger economics, and federal court case law. This article describes twelve ways that the Guidelines should be revised to better reflect current agency practice, to incorporate aspects of merger analysis absent from the 1992 Guidelines, and to clarify certain aspects of the 1992 Guidelines.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 21

Keywords: Merger Guidelines, Merger Enforcement Guidelines, Antitrust, FTC, DOJ

JEL Classification: K21, L40, L41, L49

Accepted Paper Series