I looked around for a while, a d I can't actually find a list of any mergers that antitrust regulations actually prevented.
I'm assuming some survivor bias is involved here and we don't hear about the ones that stopped early, but it seems that what I and most folks assume antitrust regulations do is different than what actually happens.
I remember the Sirius/XM merge and how those were the only two players in the market, and it was wild to me how that was allowed to happen.
They blocked Comcast from merging with Time Warner Cable. By “they” I’m referring to AT&T and Verizon (the two biggest telecom providers in the US), who were afraid of a third telecom provider establishing a national footprint and potentially challenging them across wireless and wireline. By preventing the merger through their immense political connections, they keep both Comcast and TWC as regional players who are much easier to monopolize.
So even the antitrust that goes through usually only goes through because powerful (often monopolistic) forces want to block a merger, not because it’s what’s objectively best for competition.
That failed merger's poison pill is the reason T-Mobile is the juggernaut it is today. The cash T-Mobile received allowed them to upgrade their network, and customers could roam free on AT&T's 1700MHz frequency.
AT&T's threat assessment of T-Mobile was correct at the time.
> AT&T's threat assessment of T-Mobile was correct at the time.
I think that assessment was obvious to everyone at the time. The question is whether buying out competitors is good for the public.
Of course, the cash was a penalty for not being able to pull off the merger; if the cash was critical for T-Mobile to become the threat it has been, the outcome is ironic.
I don't know what the breakup cash might have amounted to, but the AT&T roaming agreement was for 7 years, and it's only recently with n41/n71 that T-Mobile has done any better.
The equivalent for this merger would be something like Minecraft and Bethesda games on the A-B launcher for 7 years. Huge giveaway by AT&T I think, as foolish as it might have been for them to think the merger would actually go through; having at-least 4 major carriers was policy at the time and still is (Dish's spectrum hoarding notwithstanding).
I think this is a huge source of a lot of the wealth inequality and just general dystopia we find ourselves living in. We need some sort of commoner lobbyist organization we can all be part of, the voting doesn't seem to be working very well. You have to literally pay the politicians.
In the EU, Siemens and Alstom weren't allowed to merge their train divisions without significant divestment. Same for Daewoo and Hyundai shipbuilding just last week.
I imagine that if Facebook tried to buy Whatsapp or Instagram toady, they would be facing a different kind of a regulatory environment. It feels like the world has only recently awakened to how Facebook just tries to buy out their competition.
> I looked around for a while, a d I can't actually find a list of any mergers that antitrust regulations actually prevented.
Just today, the DOJ and FTC announced plans to toughen up on mergers and acquisitions.
>The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division kicked off a process to rewrite merger guidelines for businesses on Tuesday, signaling a tougher stance toward large deals.
I'm assuming some survivor bias is involved here and we don't hear about the ones that stopped early, but it seems that what I and most folks assume antitrust regulations do is different than what actually happens.
I remember the Sirius/XM merge and how those were the only two players in the market, and it was wild to me how that was allowed to happen.