Big Deals Being Chilled by Biden’s Aggressive Antitrust Agenda

The US government’s aggressive stance on antitrust is chilling merger activity among the country’s biggest companies, with some deals never making it past the boardroom as executives fear lengthy and expensive approval processes.

US enforcers have roughly doubled their efforts to block mergers under the Biden administration: in the 12 months through September, the antitrust agencies filed complaints against a record 13 transactions compared to an average of six per year over the previous five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Though deals involving US companies have steadily increased, the recent pace of interventions by the Justice Department or the Federal Trade ...