A PYMNTS Company

FTC To Increase Scrutiny of Past Mergers

By  |  September 20, 2020

The Federal Trade Commission is expanding its internal program for reviewing past mergers and acquisitions in an effort to further investigate how completed deals impact competition, reported Bloomberg. 

    Get the Full Story

    Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required.

    yesSubscribe to our daily newsletter, PYMNTS Today.

    By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.

    The commission has widened the scope of and devoted more resources to its Merger Retrospective Program, an internal section tasked with analyzing the economic effects of a variety of consummated mergers, it said Thursday. 

    The FTC plans to develop and maintain a website dedicated to the government’s research on past deals, and will issue an annual report detailing lessons learned from retrospective studies, the FTC said in a statement. 

    “Merger retrospectives are a powerful way of engaging in critical self-examination to see if our antitrust enforcement is working correctly,” said FTC Chairman Joseph Simons. “The goal of this initiative is to encourage economists both inside and outside the agency to carry out more retrospective studies to test our analytical tools and strengthen our enforcement efforts.”