Potential Competitive Effects of Vertical Mergers: A How-To Guide for Practitioners

Posted by Social Science Research Network

Potential Competitive Effects of Vertical Mergers: A How-To Guide for Practitioners – Steven C. Salop (Georgetown University Law Center) and Daniel P Culley (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP)

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this short article is to aid practitioners in analyzing the competitive effects of vertical and complementary product mergers. The U.S. Vertical Merger Guidelines released in 1984 are out of date and do not reflect current enforcement or economic thinking about the potential competitive effects of vertical mergers. Nor do they provide the tools needed to carry out a modern competitive effects analysis. This article is intended to partially fill the gap by summarizing the various potential competitive harms and benefits that can occur in vertical mergers and the types of economic and factual analysis of competitive effects that can be applied to those mergers during the HSR review process. The article also identifies several legal and policy issues that the agencies would consider when they undertake the process of revising the Vertical Merger Guidelines.