Reliable guidelines? A European comment

Merger guidelines mean to reduce the uncertainty related to the possible anti-competitive impact of mergers/takeovers by businesses undertaking them. It is doubtful, according to the author, whether the Revised Merger Guidelines of two US Antitrust Authorities achieve that goal. They would seem to be too ‘theoretical’ in the face of inevitably unique merger events; moreover, the theory in the Guidelines has some important weaknesses and limitations. From an EC competition policy point of view, an efficiency trade-off for a dominant-firm merger is considered dubious procedure.