FTC Is More ‘Focused’ on Blocking Bad Deals After Amazon-iRobot

After Amazon.com Inc.’s decision to abandon a proposed acquisition of iRobot Corp. this week, the Federal Trade Commission is “extremely focused” on blocking bad mergers, a senior official said.

Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, one of three Democrats that control the US antitrust agency, said at a Brussels conference on Wednesday that the FTC was already probing the transaction when Amazon dropped the deal.

“That’s a big change in direction,” said Slaughter. “We are extremely focused on deterrence in our work,” adding that lawsuits send an “important market-wide message about where our concerns are.”

FTC staff had met with ...