Data Heightens Risks of Bad Vertical Acquisitions, DOJ's Delrahim Says
Many vertical acquisitions are good for competition or at least neutral, but the wrong vertical one "can create and entrench monopolists" and that risk is higher in digital markets where vertically integrated platforms have access to data needed by potential…
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rivals, said DOJ antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim Wednesday at a vertical mergers guidelines workshop, per prepared remarks. He said if important data is available only to a downstream service due to an acquisition, that might increase the ability to raise rivals' downstream costs. He said the AT&T/Time Warner decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was "a significant development" in making clear that Section 7 of the Clayton Act governs an anti-competitive acquisition. He called that important because Section 7 looks to possible future effects and lets DOJ act before a problem arises.