The Biden administration unveiled new, tougher proposed guidelines for how it will police against monopoly power Monday, and top officials are now pushing back against criticisms that the document is a political attempt to frighten companies from legal mergers and acquisitions.
“We’re not picking winners and losers,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter said in an interview with CNBC Wednesday. “We’ve gone through painstaking detail to make sure this is not an ideological document…to make sure this is a legally rigorous document.”
The new guidelines come amid a series of losses for antitrust enforcers, including last week’s court ruling in favor of Microsoft Corp.’s
MSFT,
planned $69 billion acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard Inc.,
ATVI,
which the Federal Trade Commission has attempted to block.
The 13 proposed guidelines were issued jointly by the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission, and seek to educate courts and companies as to how the antitrust enforcers will approach their attempts to block deals, though the public will have 60 days to weigh in on them before they are formally adopted.
Under the proposal, enforcers will look more closely at companies that engage in series of acquisitions in the same market, rather than evaluating each deal as a potentially separate violation and will focus on the impact of deals on workers rather than just customers.
Though the guidelines do not have the force of law, they will inform how the current and future administrations decide which mergers to attempt to block.
President Biden is touting the proposal as part of his economic reform agenda that has underscored increased competition as necessary for lowering prices and increasing wages. He will meet with his Competition Council, which includes FTC Chair Lina Khan and Attorney General Merrick Garland Wednesday afternoon.
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