As Obama’s term winds down, crackdowns on mergers speed up

Over the past year, a number of corporate giants have backed down in the face of Obama Administration pressure against mergers and acquisitions. On April 15, President Barack Obama issued an executive order ordering all agencies to submit within 30 days a list of actions they could take to “enhance competition.”

The Obama Administration has become increasingly aggressive at enforcing antitrust rules after a relatively slow start. With Obama’s presidency nearing an end, the administration appears to be taking stock and returning to the ideas on which he campaigned. In a 2007 speech, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) lambasted President George W. Bush for “what may be the weakest record of antitrust enforcement of any administration in the last half century.” But seven years into his own presidency, President Obama has challenged only slightly more mergers than President Bush did. Moreover, the Obama Administration has been unable to slow the pace of industry consolidation. The value of merger deals in the United States reached a new high in 2015 of $2.3 trillion, according to the data company Dealogic. The number of transactions announced in 2012 — 12,323 — also set an record, fueled by a combination of low interest rates and sluggish economic growth. The mergers have rolled across almost every industry, from technology to commercial dry cleaners, from airlines to beer. And more and more industries are dominated by two or three players.