Word: antitrust
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...share, Mobil's proposal was conditional on its obtaining 51% of Conoco's shares. Mobil also had a severe handicap because it was never able to shake the fear that the Justice Department would block the merger of two oil companies on antitrust grounds...
Congressional critics, though, blame the Reagan Administration for creating a new atmosphere that encourages merger fever. The President appointed William Baxter, a Stanford law professor who firmly believes in the virtues of large-scale enterprises unfettered by excessive Government regulation, to be his antitrust chief in the Justice Department. Baxter's boss, Attorney General William French Smith, succinctly stated the new Adminstration's philosophy in an oft-quoted speech before the District of Columbia Bar. Said Smith: "Bigness in business is not necessarily badness. Efficient firms should not be hobbled under the guise of antitrust enforcement...
...admits, "The strains of populist hostility toward large companies are deeply ingrained in the U.S." Government trustbusters have enjoyed broad public support as they attacked both concentration within an industry and combinations between corporate giants in unrelated businesses. Yet the burgeoning growth of corporate America has outpaced all the antitrust efforts. Since World War II, the portion of U.S. industry controlled by the 200 largest manufacturing firms has risen from...
Some merger advocates also contend that big companies have the best chance of holding their own against increasingly aggressive foreign rivals. Larger and more efficient firms can often undersell huge overseas competitors, which frequently benefit from liberal antitrust policies. Says William Agee, chairman of Bendix Corp. "The acquisitions we're seeing at the moment will be a good thing for America in that they will make us more viable in the world market...
...Conoco by even one of the biggest oil companies would not drastically alter the industry's balance of power. In the case of retail gasoline sales, for example, neither a Texaco-Conoco nor a Mobil-Conoco combine would hold more than 7.4% of the market. Observes one Administration antitrust lawyer: "It wouldn't be like Ford and General Motors merging...