FTC
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
Lawyers who believe commission will be more lenient toward mergers under the Bush Administration "will be doing their actual or potential clients a big disservice if those clients act on that presumption," FTC Chairman Timothy Muris asserted at American Bar Association Antitrust Section annual meeting in Chicago Aug. 7. "If you come in with transactions that would not fly in the past, you are likely to crash unless you have compelling, stubborn facts on your side," he noted. FTC has been busy with pharma recently; it considered requiring Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham to divest one of their smoking cessation products before approving their merger and also oversaw Pfizer's acquisition of Warner-Lambert. Muris took over as head of FTC June 4 (1"The Tan Sheet" June 4, p. 2)