Symposium: The 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines: Editor’s Introduction

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The 1992 Horizontal Merger Guidelines got a much needed facelift, if not an outright overhaul, in 2010. As an expression of the enforcement philosophy and practice of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, the old Guidelines were out of date and demanded revision. This is just what they got in 2010. And this is the subject of the present Symposium. The point of Section 7 of the Clayton Act is to prevent harm to competition that may occur as a consequence of a horizontal merger. Section 7 accomplishes this (some what imperfectly) by prohibiting mergers that substantially increase concentration in a market and thereby might substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. Hovenkamp leads off the Symposium with an assessment of how the 2010 Guide lines address competitive concerns in four areas: exclusion, restraints on innovation, unilateral effects, and coordinated effects. In this regard, Willig specifically addresses unilateral effects in some detail. He develops some interesting results on the upward price pressure that is associated with mergers and some other extensions. As for coor dinated effects, Gayle, Marshall, Marx, and Richard examine this competitive concern in the 2010 Guidelines.