US: Senate confirms Trump’s antitrust pick

The US Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm the head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, which will decide the fate of deals like AT&T’s proposed purchase of Time Warner and the merger of Bayer and Monsanto.

The Senate voted 73 to 21 to confirm Delrahim.

The Senate also confirmed Heath Tarbert, by a vote of 87 to 8, to be an assistant secretary of the Treasury. He is expected to oversee the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which assesses proposed transactions to ensure they do not harm national security.

Tarbert, now at the law firm Allen & Overy, will take the reins of CFIUS at a time when the inter-agency panel has balked at approving deals involving Chinese buyers in areas as disparate as semiconductors, insurance and aluminum.

The confirmations mean that the Trump administration, after eight months, will finally have two of the top people in place who decide if mergers may go forward. Their first decisions will give investors a framework to use to decide which deals to push.

Full Content: Washington Post

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