DOJ Antitrust Chief’s Speech Sends Another Signal on AT&T Deal

Makan Delrahim, the Justice Department’s new antitrust chief, made clear he doesn’t favor approving mergers based on corporate commitments to refrain from particular conduct, another potentially ominous sign for AT&T-Time Warner. The issue has proved a key one in discussions between the companies and the Justice Department. The AT&T-Time Warner transaction is a vertical merger that combines complementary companies instead of direct competitors. In the past, the Justice Department has shown a willingness to approve such deals, even if they raised competition concerns, so long as the merging parties agreed to so-called behavioral remedies. Speaking at an American Bar Association conference, Makan Delrahim said there was bipartisan agreement that behavioral conditions have often proved to be inadequate. He said such conditions were a form of government regulation that the Justice Department was ill-equipped to impose, and he criticized past antitrust enforcers for experimenting “with allowing illegal mergers to proceed subject to behavioral commitments.”