Hawk, Barry E.; Keyte, James A. --- "Making Sense of the Reactions to the 2010 US Horizontal Merger Guidelines" [2011] ELECD 795; in Govaere, Inge; Quick, Reinhard; Bronckers, Marco (eds), "Trade and Competition Law in the EU and Beyond" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Trade and Competition Law in the EU and Beyond

Editor(s): Govaere, Inge; Quick, Reinhard; Bronckers, Marco

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857935663

Section: Chapter 25

Section Title: Making Sense of the Reactions to the 2010 US Horizontal Merger Guidelines

Author(s): Hawk, Barry E.; Keyte, James A.

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

25. Making sense of the reactions to
the 2010 US Horizontal Merger
Guidelines
Barry E. Hawk and James A. Keyte

25.1 INTRODUCTION

In once describing why he would not join his teammates for dinner at a
popular restaurant, baseball legend Yogi Berra famously quipped,
`Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded'.1 The same could be said
about trying to comment on the revised Horizontal Merger Guidelines
(RMGs), issued by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice
(DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (collectively, Agencies) in
August 2010.2 The RMGs explain enforcement policy for two of the most
important antitrust and competition regulators in the world, which makes
the RMGs one of the most potentially influential documents in today's
antitrust world. Recognizing this importance, in 2010 alone, commentators
have put out (by our count) more than 120 articles or shorter analyses
discussing the RMGs. In other words, seemingly anyone who considers
themselves an expert on antitrust law and/or economics has felt compelled
to weigh in on the RMGs.
Recognizing this rising cacophony, we offer this chapter ­ particularly for
readers who typically have a European focus ­ as a starting point for
understanding the positions on the RMG taken by authors across disci-
plines, economic perspectives, and continents. Thus, our purpose is two-
fold. First, this chapter is descriptive, surveying the commentary to date on
the RMGs. Second, although we acknowledge a number of widely accepted
positives in the RMGs, the incredible variance in opinions ...