Word: metzenbaum
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...Kennedy-Metzenbaum would categorically block takeovers or mergers between companies that have either assets or annual sales of more than $2 billion, a group that includes some 150 of the top U.S. industrial firms. The bill would also stop takeovers by these firms of the hundreds of additional companies around the country that have $350 million or more in assets or sales...
Still, Robert Bork, now a Yale law professor, contended that Kennedy-Metzenbaum is symptomatic of a new anti-bigness mentality in the highest reaches of Government. Though most conference participants felt that large companies compete as ferociously and fairly as small firms, they were told by Economist Walter Adams of Michigan State University that antitrust has political as well as economic elements. Said he: "The objective of antitrust is not to promote efficiency and consumer welfare. These are only ancillary benefits that are expected to flow from economic freedom. The primary purpose of antitrust is to perpetuate and preserve...
...foreign trade particularly, the U.S. is already suffering from its restrictive antitrust laws, which hold American companies to tougher standards overseas than competing foreign firms must meet. Kennedy-Metzenbaum would aggravate the problem. Though big U.S. companies would be stopped from buying up others at home, foreign investors would be allowed to come in and continue acquiring almost as much as they want. Said Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, a Judiciary Committee member who has fought hard against the bill: "We are at a time in our history when we should be doing all in our power to make...
Many speakers also criticized the Kennedy-Metzenbaum bill for shifting the burden of proof. The U.S. Government would not have to prove that a proposed merger might hurt competition, but the company wanting to expand would have to prove that competition would actually increase. Economist MacAvoy suggested that this approach was little more than a power play to make it easier for the Government to prove its antitrust cases. But, he contended, "the burden of proof should rest with the Michael Pertschuks of this world." The FTC is already empowered to act as both the prosecutor and judge in antitrust...
Several panel members also faulted Kennedy-Metzenbaum for setting arbitrary limits on the size of companies that are allowed to merge. So long as inflation continues, the number of companies that have $2 billion in sales or assets will grow fast, and yet each firm will have a smaller share of the nation's markets than at present. Meanwhile, the new activism in antitrust would concentrate more and more power in the Justice Department's and FTC's enforcement bureaus. Assistant Attorney General John Shenefield, the antitrust chief, told the group that the public has concluded, though...