USA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Bradley Justus, Lisl Dunlop, Josh Jowdy and Sandhya Taneja, Axinn
Looking ahead in the second Trump administration Both the FTC and DOJ have consistently emphasised merger remedies as a useful path to permitting merg - ers to close. Current turnover in DOJ leadership is unlikely to alter this position. While AAG Gail Slater stepped down from her post in February 2026, her interim replacement (until June 29th), Omeed A. Assefi, continued to express the Division’s policy of openness to negotiating divestitures, reiterating that structural relief “allows for the resolution of com - petitive concerns without the need for the Division or Courts to engage in costly monitorship” and “allows us to use a scalpel, fix the problem, and get out of the way”. Assefi continued that while the agencies will always be “ready and willing to litigate merger cases if [they] do not get the necessary relief in a settlement”, businesses should continue to expect an openness to negotiated settlements. In June 2026, President Trump announced his intention to nominate Adam Candeub, currently General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, as the new head of the Antitrust Division. It is expected that, when finally con - firmed, the new AAG will continue the DOJ’s current merger remedies policy.
with little time for the government to evaluate whether the fix is sufficient to resolve anti-competitive con - cerns” poses problems for the agency and the court, even describing some such proposals as “unfair or bad faith” and an attempt to “subvert” the merger review process itself. Ferguson emphasised that the goal of the agencies’ merger review process is to pro - tect competition, and remedies should be informed by the “expertise, experience, and procompetitive purpose of the Commission”. Business as usual: other divestiture settlements The antitrust agencies have also reached several more typical merger settlements involving divestitures, con - forming to their historical practice. As of July 2026, the antitrust agencies under Trump have negotiated settlements in at least 12 merger investigations, in industries ranging from software to aircraft compo - nents to retail gas stations. By contrast, over the last two fiscal years of the Biden administration (from 1 October 2022 to 30 September 2024), the FTC had issued four consent decrees in merger settlements, and the DOJ did not issue any.
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