Record M&A Boom Risks Running Afoul of Biden’s Antitrust Cops

A runaway 2021 merger boom with almost $1 trillion of pending deals in the U.S. threatens to run headlong into the Biden administration’s new, tougher antitrust regime.

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan’s warning of a more aggressive stance to block deals, disclosed Thursday in a letter to Senator Elizabeth Warren, is the newest signal of a far more restrictive environment for mergers and acquisitions, according to lawyers and bankers.

“The new administration has made it clear that prior administrations -- both Democratic and Republican -- may have been overly permissive on mergers,” said James Fishkin, an ...