Biden Administration Updates Guidelines on Busting Up Monopolies

In the wake of legal turmoil that has stalled—but not prevented—a merger between Microsoft and Activision, the Biden administration has opted to revisit the guidelines that the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission will use to assess mergers and acquisitions under the lens of federal antitrust laws.

The Department of Justice announced the update in a press release on Wednesday and is currently seeking public opinions on the guidelines for the next 60 days. The Biden administration hopes that the 13 new guidelines will better reflect how the modern economy allows monopolies to form. The framework codifies different conditions that may characterize a company merger or acquisition as a monopoly, including the points that “Mergers should not significantly increase concentration in highly concentrated markets” and “Mergers should not eliminate a potential entrant in a concentrated market.” The Justice Department says that these new updated conditions are not mutually exclusive and any merger may run afoul of more than one of the points.

“Unchecked consolidation threatens the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in the press release. “These updated Merger Guidelines respond to modern market realities and will enable the Justice Department to transparently and effectively protect the American people from the damage that anticompetitive mergers cause.”

It’s fitting that there are 13 guidelines to assess a potential monopoly, as that’s the lucky number of a certain singer-songwriter whose fans brought Ticketmaster before Congress earlier this year. After the November presale for the U.S. leg of Taylor Swift’s blockbuster The Eras Tour went down in flames and left Swifties with a nasty scar, the rabid fanbase immediately set its sights on Ticketmaster, accusing the live music company of being a monopoly. Ticketmaster—which merged with Live Nation in 2010—then testified before Congress in a January hearing that it wasn’t to blame for The Eras Tour disaster, it was just those damn bots.

More recently, however, the FTC was involved in the widely covered acquisition between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, the former of which opted to purchase the game company for a massive $69 billion. The FTC announced its move to block the deal back in December. Led by big tech opponent Lina Kahn, the FTC argued that the deal would allow Microsoft to suppress competitors from accessing the Xbox platform. However, earlier this month, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley for District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Microsoft was a-okay to buy Activision Blizzard. The FTC filed an appeal of Judge Corley’s decision just a few days later, only to lose the appeal shortly thereafter.

In the wake of legal turmoil that has stalled—but not prevented—a merger between Microsoft and Activision, the Biden administration has opted to revisit the guidelines that the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission will use to assess mergers and acquisitions under the lens of federal antitrust laws.

The Department of Justice announced the update in a press release on Wednesday and is currently seeking public opinions on the guidelines for the next 60 days. The Biden administration hopes that the 13 new guidelines will better reflect how the modern economy allows monopolies to form. The framework codifies different conditions that may characterize a company merger or acquisition as a monopoly, including the points that “Mergers should not significantly increase concentration in highly concentrated markets” and “Mergers should not eliminate a potential entrant in a concentrated market.” The Justice Department says that these new updated conditions are not mutually exclusive and any merger may run afoul of more than one of the points.

“Unchecked consolidation threatens the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in the press release. “These updated Merger Guidelines respond to modern market realities and will enable the Justice Department to transparently and effectively protect the American people from the damage that anticompetitive mergers cause.”

It’s fitting that there are 13 guidelines to assess a potential monopoly, as that’s the lucky number of a certain singer-songwriter whose fans brought Ticketmaster before Congress earlier this year. After the November presale for the U.S. leg of Taylor Swift’s blockbuster The Eras Tour went down in flames and left Swifties with a nasty scar, the rabid fanbase immediately set its sights on Ticketmaster, accusing the live music company of being a monopoly. Ticketmaster—which merged with Live Nation in 2010—then testified before Congress in a January hearing that it wasn’t to blame for The Eras Tour disaster, it was just those damn bots.

More recently, however, the FTC was involved in the widely covered acquisition between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, the former of which opted to purchase the game company for a massive $69 billion. The FTC announced its move to block the deal back in December. Led by big tech opponent Lina Kahn, the FTC argued that the deal would allow Microsoft to suppress competitors from accessing the Xbox platform. However, earlier this month, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley for District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that Microsoft was a-okay to buy Activision Blizzard. The FTC filed an appeal of Judge Corley’s decision just a few days later, only to lose the appeal shortly thereafter.