US Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson emphasized in two public appearances today that the agency's antitrust policy for mergers and acquisitions is designed to avoid both the perils of deterring procompetitive deals and the dangers of allowing anticompetitive mergers.
Neither “categorical, hardcore opposition to M&A activity which hurts innovation” nor a hands-off approach that permits companies to acquire significant market power is advisable, Ferguson said.*
He also promised not to ignore merger remedy offers or refuse to consider those proposals, but he stressed that the FTC’s remedy evaluation standards will be high.
“I think a very realistic approach to remedies where we, the agencies, accept remedies when we're quite confident that they will be successful helps block more anticompetitive conduct and protect more Americans,” Ferguson said.**
The chairman said the Biden-era FTC frequently conducted secretive, lengthy merger reviews where merging parties weren’t sure what the FTC’s theories of harm were and didn’t understand why the process was taking so long. “It led to tremendous uncertainty, and uncertainty is the enemy of growth,” he said.
Ferguson indicated that this administration’s FTC will strive for efficiency, consistency and transparency during merger reviews. “The feedback I've gotten from the business community is, ‘Obviously, we care about the substance of your views, but we care more about them being articulated and then stuck to because then we can plan appropriately,’” the chairman said.
Ferguson took a neutral stance on M&A activity in general, saying every merger needs to be evaluated on a standalone basis to determine if it poses a threat to competition.
“I don't have an ideological predisposition against M&A,” the FTC chairman said. “It doesn't follow, however, that I think it should just be open season and that we ought to return to an era that was characterized by tremendous deference to the C-suite and a preference for monopoly over intervention because of the fears of the false positives. So, I see it as my goal and my job to thread that needle where healthy, procompetitive M&A that allows American innovation to thrive passes through quickly with certainty, and it's the anticompetitive stuff we move with equal alacrity to stop.”
The dangers of big monopolies are comparable to the perils of big government, Ferguson argued.
“I don't want to replace big government with big monopoly,” he said. “I don't like either of them, and I don't think any of us should have to live under either of them, and both of them can obstruct individual liberty in very similar ways.”
Ferguson said he wants to avoid a situation in which a company gains so much market power it can oppress people.
“If a company can drive you out of the public square on social media, if they can drive you out of employment or if they can make sure that your idea that could be groundbreaking, lifechanging for tens of millions of Americans or maybe the whole world will never see the light of day because it’s a potential competitive threat to their monopoly, they can really constrict all of our individual liberty in ways that should terrify us,” he said.
However, Ferguson also warned that, without the potential for acquisition by larger companies, startup firms might have less incentive to innovate, which could stunt economic growth and the development new technology.
“M&A is part of how little tech companies can really realize their value,” he said. “And if people who’d invest in little-tech companies think they can't get their money back out, they just won't invest.”
*Little Tech Competition Summit. Y Combinator. Washington, DC. April 2, 2025.
**Antitrust Under Trump: Ferguson, Slater, Caffarra & Mundt Weigh In. FGS Global + Capitol Forum. April 2, 2025.
—Khushita Vasant, Claude Marx and Dwight Weingarten contributed to this article.
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