Antitrust Regulators Mull Reworking of Key Merger Review Metric

Antitrust regulators’ long-held metric used in supporting their lawsuits to block mergers is headed for a revamp as they look for more modern ways to curb anticompetitive impacts.

The Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department are asking the public if they should make changes to their “market definition” analysis, a fact-intensive undertaking that requires defining a particular market of products or consumers wherein the proposed deal may lead to competitive dominance.

When suing to block mergers, the agencies must convince a court that the deal would cause price increases or other types of harm to that defined market.

But in ...