Word: merger
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Justice Department blocks the LTV-Republic merger...
...Reagan Administration has approved some of the biggest corporate mergers in history: Du Pont and Conoco, U.S. Steel and Marathon Oil and, tentatively, Texaco and Getty. Last week, in a stunning reversal, it blocked the planned marriage of LTV and Republic Steel. Proposed in September, the deal would have created the second-largest steel company in America, behind U.S. Steel. Assistant Attorney General J. Paul McGrath, named two months ago to succeed William Baxter as the Justice Department's antitrust chief, said the merger would violate the Clayton Act, which bans excessive concentration in any industry...
McGrath's position cast doubt over an even bigger steel merger. Three weeks ago, U.S. Steel announced the takeover of National Steel, which would have combined the largest and seventh-largest companies. Steel officials in recent months have been predicting that the business was about to undergo a series of such mergers, which would reduce the number of major steel producers from eight to as few as three. Executives contend that by combining resources, fewer rank-and-file steelworkers and middle managers would be needed, excess capacity would be reduced, and spending for raw materials to produce steel would...
...Justice Department, however, questioned whether the LTV and Republic merger would bring about that much increased efficiency. It also said that the threat of foreign competition in the kinds of steel most affected by the merger was not great enough to overcome the risks of domestic collusion to increase steel prices...
...their position with the Justice Department. Even former Antitrust Chief Baxter, now a law professor at Stanford, agreed. Said he last week: "The steel companies can't have it both ways. They can't have protectionism on the U.S. market and then expect to be judged on merger questions as if they operated in a free world market...