Reply #17: New View of Antitrust Law: See No Evil, Hear No Evil [View All]

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/business/05legal.html?ex=1304481600&en=796796080dd18a22&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

(free registration or try www.bugmenot.com)

WHEN it comes to many kinds of antitrust enforcement, Bush administration officials call to mind Abba Eban's observation about the Palestinians: They don't miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

The administration, following its Democratic and Republican predecessors, continues its unsurprising policy of aggressively combating cartels and price-fixing. (Who, after all, would be in favor of cartels and price fixers?)

But in other areas of antitrust law, the administration has taken the most relaxed and least aggressive approach since the last years of the Reagan presidency.

A few weeks ago, the Justice Department cleared Whirlpool's $1.7 billion acquisition of Maytag even though the new entity would have a dominating share of the marketplace, controlling about three-quarters of the market for some home appliances.

The department justified its decision by a combination of evidence and law. That included confidential commercial information that the department says it cannot make public; a very broad definition of the marketplace to include foreign companies, some of which have yet to make a bigger push in the United States; and an expansive reading of the economic efficiency defense for permitting such deals.

The decision demoralized the career ranks of the antitrust division at the Justice Department, officials there have said. And it left private antitrust practitioners in Washington wondering whether, in light of the decision and the flurry of corporate dealers, there are could really be any mergers that this administration would challenge.

...more...