Trump Return Signals Revival of Settlements in M&A Enforcement

A flip in party control of the White House is expected to upend a Biden administration policy that largely opposed settlements to resolve merger investigations, with big consequences for corporate dealmakers.

One of the Biden antitrust regime’s sharpest breaks from past practice was its skepticism of merger remedies, which involve crafting behavioral or structural tweaks to a deal, as a condition of approval, to relieve potential anticompetitive aspects. An example is an acquirer divesting a business line where there are competitive overlaps with its deal target.

Biden-era leaders took a view that such fixes often fail to cure underlying competition ...