ANALYSIS: DOJ Is Shaking Up World of Interlocking Directorates

It’s been a sleepy area of antitrust law for over 100 years, but interlocking directorates jurisprudence is about to get jolted awake.

The provision (Section 8 of the Clayton Act) outlaws the simultaneous holding of director or officer positions in two competing corporations. Enforcement of this section over the past century has been somewhat sporadic—but that’s about to change, as the Justice Department recently made clear.

“The Antitrust Division is undertaking an extensive review of interlocking directorates across the entire economy and will enforce the law,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division said in ...