Document Type
Article
Abstract
"The sole consistency that I can find is that under Section 7, the Government always wins." When this famous antitrust apothegm was pronounced in 1966 by Justice Stewart, dissenting in United States v. Von's Grocery, it had the ring of truth. It is less true today: of the (admittedly few) reported Justice Department merger cases decided since William Baxter assumed responsibility as Assistant Attorney General, the Government has lost all but one. The Federal Trade Commission's court record in merger cases has been substantially better. Even in private cases, usually involving challenges to mergers to which the federal antitrust agencies did not object, plaintiffs have won about half of the decisions on the merits.
Disciplines
Antitrust and Trade Regulation | Law | Litigation
Recommended Citation
Stephen Calkins, Developments in Merger Litigation: The Government Doesn't Always Win, 56 Antitrust L. J. 855 (1988).