Trump FTC Chair Pledges to Keep Aggressive Merger Enforcement

President Donald Trump’s Federal Trade Commission will “vigorously” sue to block illegal mergers, the agency’s new chairman said Monday, highlighting support for the repeated deal challenges during the Biden era.

“We are going to enforce these laws vigorously and aggressively,” FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson said in his first public appearance since becoming the agency’s leader last month. If the commission believes that a merger violates the law “you’re going to see us in court and if we think it doesn’t, we’re going to get out of the way.”

The former Virginia solicitor general and aide to then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Ferguson joined the FTC last year as one of two GOP members and was elevated to lead the agency by Trump.

In his remarks Monday, Ferguson noted that the merger challenges the FTC filed in the last year of the Biden administration had unanimous support from the agency’s five commissioners. The agency succeeded in blocking proposed deals between Kroger Co. and Albertsons Cos. and Tapesty Inc. and Capri Holdings Ltd. It recently lost a bid to bar Tempur Sealy International Inc. from acquiring Mattress Firm Inc.

“There was a fair amount of bipartisan agreement on when it was time to pull the trigger and go to court to stop a merger,” he said.

As a commissioner, Ferguson voted in favour of new rules that require companies seeking to merge to provide more information to the US antitrust agencies and announced last week that the FTC will keep tougher merger guidelines adopted during the Biden administration.

Ferguson’s comments came at an event sponsored by the Coalition for App Fairness, an anti-Big Tech trade group that includes Spotify Technology SA and Epic Games Inc. as members, and the conservative news outlet Washington Reporter.

By Leah Nylen

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