United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and United States Representative Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) jointly introduced the Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act, which they say in a Press Release would prohibit the “biggest, most anticompetitive mergers and give the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the teeth to reject deals in the first instance without court orders and to break up harmful mergers.” The proposed legislation focuses on three sets of changes: (1) prohibiting many mergers; (2) “overhauling” the merger review process, including allowing DOJ and FTC to block mergers without going to court; and (3) revisiting mergers since 2000 that would have met the new definition of a prohibited merger and requiring divestitures or other remedies.
Prohibited mergers would be defined as deals:
- resulting in highly concentrated markets under the 1992 DOJ/FTC merger guidelines (which include any relevant market with fewer than six equal-sized competitors);
- resulting in market shares over 33% in any relevant market for sellers (which likely would include most communications, media, and technology (CMT) transactions, including those of rural companies); or
- valued over $5 billion (1000 companies have greater market capitalization as of March 21, 2022 according to CompaniesMarketCap.com).
