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U.S. DOJ and FTC Announce Plan to Revamp Merger Guidelines
Cleary Gottlieb – On Tuesday, January 18th, FTC Chair Lina Khan and DOJ Antitrust Division Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter held a joint press conference in which they announced ambitious plans to review and update the Merger Guidelines, targeting a release of new guidelines before the end of 2022. The most recent guidelines updates occurred after an 18-month collaboration between the agencies during the Trump Administration, which focused on revising guidance related to vertical mergers (guidance from which the Biden Administration FTC promptly withdrew). Previously, the Horizontal Merger Guidelines were revised in 2010 after a lengthy process run by the antitrust agencies.