Trump Admin Halts a String of Antitrust Cases, Approving Corporate Mergers– readsludge.com

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The Trump administration has dropped federal scrutiny of several corporate mergers in recent months, according to an analysis by Public Citizen—waving through multibillion-dollar deals for companies, including many that made large donations to the Trump-Vance inauguration.

The watchdog Public Citizen examines the Trump administration’s blessing of the mergers in its updated tracker of 165 corporate enforcement actions that have been halted, dropped, or withdrawn as of July 25. The tally includes cases that were dismissed by federal agencies instead of being brought to trial, as well as investigations that were closed favorably for corporations.

Since the start of April, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) have advanced the mergers of T-Mobile and UScellular, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and rival Juniper Networks, and others that faced charges of being anti-competitive. Under President Trump, the agencies have also intervened in antitrust cases on the completed mergers of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, Capital One and Discover, and others.

“Trump’s unshackling of a rogues gallery of corporate villains and lawbreakers shows how little this president cares about the victims of corporate crime,” said Rick Claypool, research director for Public Citizen. “This is no ‘law and order’ administration—this is an administration that views cheated consumers with contempt, and workers’ hard-earned wages as fair game for corporate con artists.”