U.S. Antitrust Policy
Building on a request for comment and a formal draft, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have finalized specific revisions to U.S. merger policy that significantly redesign the manner in which M&A transactions will be considered. With this final, formal policy, M&A review may be more predictable, but also still more difficult for mergers and even minority holdings. A range of new analytics will need to be considered to assess transaction feasibility including new factors such as labor-market and employee implications, information power, network effects, and second or even third-order effects on rival firms. These revisions are challenges likely to be particularly acute in U.S. financial services where government agencies believe there is undue concentration in banking, payment, private-equity, and other sectors.