The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice on Tuesday jointly issued long-awaited vertical merger guidelines that will replace decades-old parameters to more accurately represent the agencies’ merger review process. This marks the first time the DOJ and FTC have issued joint guidelines on vertical mergers.
The new guidelines, which replace the antiquated 1984 Non-Horizonal Merger Guidelines, outline for practitioners how federal antitrust agencies review vertical mergers to evaluate whether they violate antitrust law. They were finalized this week after the agencies made modifications based on 74 substantive comments on the original draft from earlier this year.
