FTC Chair Lina Khan was recently asked about the benefits of allowing the free movement of capital through mergers and acquisitions and a “perception” that the FTC has become overtly hostile to merger activity. She responded:”Just to put things in context, any given year the antitrust agencies get anywhere between 1,500 and 3,000 merger filings. Of that number, 98 percent go through without even second questions being asked by the agencies so around two percent of all deals even get what’s known as a Second Request, which is, you know, a set of questions so that we can do a deeper investigation. And an even smaller fraction ultimately results in a legal challenge—so vast majority of deals still going through … Again, 98 percent of deals [are] going through without even a second question. It’s really an issue on the margins…”We agree with Chair Khan’s assessment that antitrust concerns are raised at the thin margin of M&A activity Yet, notwit
