Antitrust Mergers and Regulatory Uncertainty
SSRN, December 6, 2022
In their white paper titled “Antitrust Mergers and Regulatory Uncertainty,” Analysis Group Vice President Marissa Ginn, Manager Robert Calzaretta, and Manager Marcello Santana join Professor D. Daniel Sokol, of the University of Southern California, to survey more than 100 antitrust lawyers and economists for their views on the direction of antitrust merger enforcement under the Biden administration. Their goal was to provide a more informed discussion of the critical questions and potential paths that practitioners should anticipate when meeting with the two US regulatory agencies overseeing mergers, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The authors conducted a quantitative online survey, augmented with qualitative interviews with practice group leadership across top antitrust law firms, to explore whether and how changes in the Biden administration’s antitrust agenda have affected merger review, investments, decision making, and counsel. The authors address a range of topics, including changes in the scope of data collection and the time required to complete it, perceptions of transparency and fairness in enforcement processes, and the impacts on review processes of newly heightened attention to such concerns as labor issues and vertical integration.
The white paper, originally published on SSRN, was also summarized in “Perceptions of Regulatory Uncertainty in Antitrust Practices,” published on the Columbia Law School’s Blue Sky Blog.
Read the CLS Blue Sky Blog summary
Authors
Sokol D, Ginn M, Calzaretta R, Santana M