The U.S. government’s consideration of labor impact when evaluating proposed mergers has been called a novel approach, but a Federal Trade Commission member and Department of Justice official said Tuesday that regulators are merely enforcing what Congress intended under antitrust and worker-protection laws.
“We’re actually returning to what Congress envisioned in creating the authorities that we enforce and the agencies which we help lead,” FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said at an American Constitution Society event. “Across the U.S. Department of Justice [and] speaking for the Federal Trade Commission, as a commissioner for myself, I think that what we’re really doing is returning to the original intent of these laws.”
