President Donald Trump’s Federal Commerce Fee will “vigorously” sue to dam unlawful mergers, the company’s new chairman mentioned Monday, highlighting assist for the repeated deal challenges in the course of the Biden period.
“We’re going to implement these legal guidelines vigorously and aggressively,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson mentioned in his first public look since changing into the company’s chief final month. If the fee believes {that a} merger violates the legislation “you’re going to see us in court docket and if we expect it doesn’t, we’re going to get out of the way in which.”
The previous Virginia solicitor common and aide to then-Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Ferguson joined the FTC final yr as one in all two GOP members and was elevated to steer the company by Trump.
In his remarks Monday, Ferguson famous that the merger challenges the FTC filed within the final yr of the Biden administration had unanimous assist from the company’s 5 commissioners. The company succeeded in blocking proposed offers between Kroger Co. and Albertsons Cos. and Tapesty Inc. and Capri Holdings Ltd. It just lately misplaced a bid to bar Tempur Sealy Worldwide Inc. from buying Mattress Agency Inc.
“There was a good quantity of bipartisan settlement on when it was time to tug the set off and go to court docket to cease a merger,” he mentioned.
As a commissioner, Ferguson voted in favor of latest guidelines that require corporations searching for to merge to offer extra info to the US antitrust companies and introduced final week that the FTC will maintain harder merger pointers adopted in the course of the Biden administration.
Ferguson’s feedback got here at an occasion sponsored by the Coalition for App Equity, an anti-Massive Tech commerce group that features Spotify Expertise SA and Epic Video games Inc. as members, and the conservative information outlet Washington Reporter.
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