The Chamber submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and Federal Trade Commission in response to the request for information on merger enforcement.
In general, although the Chamber has no qualms with the agencies updating the Merger Guidelines to reflect the latest case law and empirical economic analysis, the Chamber has serious concerns that the agencies are attempting to use the RFI to rewrite substantive antitrust law based on faulty economic and legal assumptions. For instance, many of the RFI’s questions reflect a belief that economic concentration is strangling competition, that most mergers harm consumers, and that the Merger Guidelines provide an opportunity to rewrite substantive antitrust law. As explained in more detail in the comments, these assumptions, and several others, are mistaken.
