The FTC's Dentless Approach to Mergers

The FTC has been hesitant to intervene on mergers. This was an organization that was originally built to take these fights and make companies work hard to prove they could like thread anti-trust regulations around maintaining competition. And then over the years, the FTC became a bit of a rubber stamp of organization and didn't take these fights very often. The trial is not some sort of like objective verdict on the virtue of an argument. Judges are political actors who in many cases have their own ties to these industries or legal frameworks.