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Speaker 1: Republican presidents often preside over relaxed an I trust enforcements.

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Speaker 1: But if two recent deals are in the indication, the

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Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission isn't scaling back, at least when it

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Speaker 1: comes to propose corporate mergers. Last week of fantasy sports,

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Speaker 1: fantasy sports rivals Draft Kings and fan Duel walked away

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Speaker 1: from a merger agreement after the FTC filed a legal

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Speaker 1: challenge that followed a decision by Walgreens to rework an

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Speaker 1: acquisition deal with rival Right Aid again in the face

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Speaker 1: of FTC skepticism. With us to talk about the antitrust

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Speaker 1: climate at the Federal Trade Commission is Alexei Alexis. He's

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Speaker 1: the antitrust reporter for Bloomberg b n A. Alexei, thanks

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Speaker 1: so much for joining us. So let's just start by

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Speaker 1: telling us about these two deals. Why were they seen

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Speaker 1: as problematic by the FTC. Well as, starting with the

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Speaker 1: deal between Draft Kings and fan Duel, you had a

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Speaker 1: merger where, according to the FTC, it would have led

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Speaker 1: to a near monopoly where the companies would have commanded

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Speaker 1: more than of the UH daily fantasy sports market. And

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Speaker 1: so that's the type of deal that that may have

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Speaker 1: been blocked UH in in any administration, and so that

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Speaker 1: there were clear concerns there. With with Walgreen's variety, you

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Speaker 1: had a deal that some analysts would say it's more

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Speaker 1: on the margins, meaning that there were some concerns that

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Speaker 1: could have been worked out, but just at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day that it just didn't get through things.

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Speaker 1: That is a little different about what's going on at

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Speaker 1: the FTC right now is that there's really only two

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Speaker 1: commissioners right now UM, one Republican and one Democrat. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have stalled the work, but what what

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Speaker 1: is the dynamic like when you have a split like

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Speaker 1: that at the top of the commission. It's a first

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Speaker 1: of all, an unprecedented situation where you have two out

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Speaker 1: of the five UH feats filled UH and UH the

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Speaker 1: UH it's it's only increased the importance of partsanship at

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Speaker 1: the agency. You currently have one Republican and one Democrat,

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Speaker 1: and so the agency has led by marine allhousing the

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Speaker 1: Republican and UH. Nothing can be done basically without those

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Speaker 1: two agreeing. So it's only increased the importance of them

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Speaker 1: working together. Having said that, UH, with a lot on

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Speaker 1: their plate, they've managed to get through a lot of

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Speaker 1: matters and dispense with uh not only draft Kings van Duel,

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Speaker 1: but also some other deals that actually ended up being

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Speaker 1: approved with conditions. So who is sort of running the

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Speaker 1: show over there? Is it that the staff has more

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Speaker 1: importance now? With only those two commissioners? What's tell us

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Speaker 1: just a little more about the dynamic in terms of

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Speaker 1: making decisions on on these sorts of deals. So that's

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Speaker 1: typically what happens in in any case, as these commissioners

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Speaker 1: rely a lot on a career staff who worked very

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Speaker 1: hard and uh uh from day to day and and

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Speaker 1: make recommendation to recommendations to the commissioners, who uh can

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Speaker 1: decide to either accept or reject those recommendations. And so

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Speaker 1: that's become particularly important in this case because again, uh

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Speaker 1: that the commissioners are having to work together very closely

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Speaker 1: and look at things in a very by bipartisan way. Alexie,

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Speaker 1: is this a matter of you know, you've only got

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Speaker 1: two commissioners, You've got the staff doing a lot of

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Speaker 1: the work. Is this a matter of the Trump administration

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Speaker 1: just hasn't paid attention to the FDC FTC so much

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Speaker 1: so it's kind of rolling along the way it was,

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Speaker 1: or can we expect that this kind of approach is

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Speaker 1: going to continue throughout the Trump administration. Well, any trust

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Speaker 1: analysts h had predicted, uh some of them anyway up

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Speaker 1: early in the administration that because of the way that

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Speaker 1: any trust works, UH we we wouldn't see a huge

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Speaker 1: shift and enforcement even under Trump, meaning that any trust

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Speaker 1: uh enforcers tend to focus on the facts of the

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Speaker 1: case and on the law rather than political take looking

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Speaker 1: at political considerations. There was still some uncertainty because you

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Speaker 1: never know that There's been a lot of things that

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Speaker 1: have happened under this administration that have been unpredictable and

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Speaker 1: so so you still never know. But for the most part,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of the leading any trust uh

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Speaker 1: uh people in the antitrust community were expecting that you

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Speaker 1: wouldn't you probably wouldn't see any huge shifts here. It's

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Speaker 1: still even with six months into the administration, there's still

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Speaker 1: some uncertainty. We we don't have any nominees UH pending

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Speaker 1: at the FTC. There is one pending at the Justice

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Speaker 1: Department who hasn't been confirmed yet by the Senate, So

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Speaker 1: there's still a little bit of uncertainty. But for the

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Speaker 1: most part, I think people are expecting that things will

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Speaker 1: continue along and even keel Lexie only about thirty seconds left,

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Speaker 1: but very quickly. Uh the Justice Department handles and a

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Speaker 1: trust and as well. What are we saying there so far? Well,

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Speaker 1: like I said, there, you you you have an appending

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Speaker 1: nominee who's awaiting a Senate approval. Uh, he's not expected

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Speaker 1: to uh cause a huge shift over there, but you

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Speaker 1: you would expect in any Republican administration to have a

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Speaker 1: little bit of of of of a relaxation of of enforcements.

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Speaker 1: So it may not be as uh as as aggressive

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Speaker 1: as it was under the Aboma administration, but probably not

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Speaker 1: a huge shift there. Okay, we're gonna have to leave

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Speaker 1: it there, thank you, Alexei, Alexis Bloomberg BNA and a

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Speaker 1: Trust reporter talking about the Federal Trade Commission and its

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Speaker 1: merger enforcements