In both the EU and the US, 2025 marks the beginning of new leadership in charge of merger control enforcement. In the EU, Teresa Ribera has been appointed as the Executive Vice President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition and has taken over the competition portfolio as of 1 December 2024. A lawyer by education with a strong environmental background gained from her time as a politician in the Spanish government running the climate change-related agenda, Ribera will be in charge of competition as well as climate change-related policies.
In the US, the second Trump administration officially began on 20 January 2025. For the Department of Justice (DoJ), Gail Slater has been confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. Andrew Ferguson has been named as the new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair. Both have substantial backgrounds in antitrust law.
On both sides of the Atlantic, important developments in the area of merger control enforcement are currently unfolding. The EU faces criticism that its merger control regime does not sufficiently consider non-price and non-market share factors, stifles innovation and is therefore in need of the modernisation. In the US, the Biden Administration encouraged greater intervention by the FTC and DoJ. Although it was anticipated that the enforcement might revert to more traditional approaches under the new leadership, the approach established by the previous administration is expected to mostly persist, with some exceptions.
Reproduced with permission from Competition Law Insight (CLI). For further information please visit: https://www.competitionlawinsight.com/
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