US: Trump slow to nominate antitrust officials

It would appear that President Donald Trump is taking longer than Bush and Obama to announce a nominee to head the Justice Department’s antitrust division reports Bloomberg.

The decision should come soon as it will shape the administration’s antitrust policy and determine the fate of several pending mega-deals writes Liz Crampton. The DOJ’s antitrust division has several open investigations into pending mergers that began in former President Barack Obama’s administration, such as Dow Chemical’s purchase of DuPont and AT&T’s bid for Time Warner.

Trump’s nominee will also be the administration’s key decision-maker in bringing lawsuits about companies’ anticompetitive behavior.

The delay in naming an antitrust official means policy decisions about competition could be pushed into the summer. It could be several months after Trump names his pick before that person can actually get to work because the Senate will need to confirm the nominee. But it’s not unusual for new administrations to wait on positions like this.

Crampton says officials don’t tend to stay in the position for very long. In the last four administrations, the longest tenure of the first antitrust assistant attorney general was about three years.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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