The authors review comments on the DMGs that relate to economic analysis of merger review.
On December 18, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, jointly the Agencies, released the updated merger guidelines. The document replaces the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the (rescinded) 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines. The publication of the merger guidelines follows a period during which the Agencies collected comments on an initial draft of the guidelines issued on July 19, 2023. Over a 60-day period, the Agencies received over 3,000 comments from antitrust practitioners, industry participants, and the general public.
In this timely article, published days after the release of the final guidelines, authors Kate Maxwell Koegel, Ana McDowall, and Lorenzo Michelozzi summarize their review of the comments, which come from a wide spectrum of stakeholders. As economists, the authors focus their summary on commentary that speaks to the economic analysis that arises in merger review. This provides relevant context for understanding the decisions of the Agencies in reviewing the draft and preparing the, now public, final document.
The article was originally published in The Antitrust Source in December 2023.
Chicago
