FTC and Justice Department double down on strategy to go after corporate monopolies

https://www.npr.org/2023/07/19/ [login to see] /ftc-doj-merger-competition-guidelines
The Biden administration wants to shake up the rules for how corporate giants get to merge, expand and squash competition.

The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday detailed a revised approach to corporate mergers, updating how markets are defined and expanding what regulators can consider when they approve or block deals.

"As markets and commercial realities change, it is vital that we adapt our law enforcement tools to keep pace so that we can protect competition in a manner that reflects the intricacies of our modern economy," Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter said in a statement. "Simply put, competition today looks different than it did 50 — or even 15 — years ago."

The original merger guidelines were released in 1968, although there have been updates since. The Biden administration has worked on this version for the past couple of years.