FTC REFORMS EXPECTED TO STREAMLINE MERGER REVIEWS

摘要

The Federal Trade Commission will speed up merger antitrust reviews by sharing more information with companies with deals under scrutiny, capping the number of executives asked to provide information and relying more on newer technologies to get documents, it said. The agency will tell firms about the types of economic and other analyses they're using in their investigations, said a 31-page document released Thurs. Chmn. Deborah Majoras unveiled the guidelines after a year-long review by a task force. She said the rules will reduce costs and time when the FTC makes a 2nd request for information. Second information requests, occurring in less than 5% of all deals, are frequent in telecom and cable deals.nnThe FTC is examining further tweaks to merger review rules to further streamline the process, said Jeffrey Schmidt, dir.-FTC Bureau of Competition. The reforms don't entail special rules for telecom companies, said Schmidt. 揟he largest impact of this for the telecom companies ought to be the same impact that will apply to any company going through the merger review process, and that is to make the process more efficient,?Schmidt told us.