POLITICO Morning Tech: FTC’s Wilson decries merger changes

August 10, 2021 Media

Republican FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson is speaking out against her agency’s recent changes to merger reviews and urging Congress to step in.

In a nearly 1,000-word statement released Monday, Wilson lambasted recent changes to how the FTC reviews mergers, saying they defy “the will of Congress by undermining the premerger notification program.”

“I am gravely concerned that the carefully crafted [merger review] framework is suffering death by a thousand cuts,” Wilson wrote. “Businesses that faithfully comply with the [merger review] process should not be trapped perpetually beneath a Sword of Damocles.”

The Biden administration also needs to staff up the antitrust agencies to take on big companies like Google, Ramaswamy said, noting that the search giant’s legal department, with some1,500 lawyers, is significantly larger than the total number of FTC employees.

On Tuesday, 10 groups representing small businesses, farmers, pharmacists and entrepreneurs urged the Biden administration to make sure that federal agencies follow through “in a timely and comprehensive manner” on the measures in last month’s executive order. Signatories included the anti-monopoly advocacy group the American Economic Liberties Project, Small Business Majority and Family Farm Action Alliance.