Washington, D.C. — Following news of a settlement announced today by the Federal Trade Commission that would clear the path for Synopsys’s $35 billion acquisition of Ansys—two dominant players in semiconductor software design—with modest divestiture conditions, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Today, the Trump-Vance FTC approved a $35 billion semiconductor mega-merger it seems to know would violate the law, relying on vague, European-style divestitures that recall weaker moments of the Obama-Bush era antitrust playbook,” said Lee Hepner, Senior Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Without even the possibility of a dissenting opinion, the public is being asked to put blind trust in the Commission’s decision, which provides thin justification for how the consent decree will preserve competition, or why the divestiture buyer will be an effective competitor despite claims to the contrary. This risks becoming yet another cautionary tale, not unlike Live Nation-Ticketmaster or Albertsons-Safeway, where shallow remedies gave cover to market consolidation we’ve all come to regret.”

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.