2.6. Guideline 6: Mergers Can Violate the Law When They Entrench or Extend a Dominant Position

The Agencies consider whether a merger may entrench or extend an already dominant position. The effect of such mergers “may be substantially to lessen competition” or “may be . . . to tend to create a monopoly” in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act. Indeed, the Supreme Court has explained that a merger involving an “already dominant[] firm may substantially reduce the competitive structure of the industry by raising entry barriers.” [Endnote 32] The Agencies also evaluate whether the merger may extend that dominant position into new markets. [Endnote 33] Mergers that entrench or extend a dominant position can also violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act. [Endnote 34] At the same time, the Agencies distinguish anticompetitive entrenchment from growth or development as a consequence of increased competitive capabilities or incentives. [Endnote 35] The Agencies therefore seek to prevent those mergers that would entrench or extend a dominant position through exclusionary conduct, weakening competitive constraints, or otherwise harming the competitive process.

To undertake this analysis, the Agencies first assess whether one of the merging firms has a dominant position based on direct evidence or market shares showing durable market power. For example, the persistence of market power can indicate that entry barriers exist, that further entrenchment may tend to create a monopoly, and that there would be substantial benefits from the emergence of new competitive constraints or disruptions. The Agencies consider mergers involving dominant firms in the context of evidence about the sources of that dominance, focusing on the extent to which the merger relates to, reinforces, or supplements these sources.

Creating or preserving dominance and the profits it brings can be an important motivation for a firm to undertake an acquisition as well as a driver of the merged firm’s behavior after the acquisition. In particular, a firm may be willing to undertake costly short-term strategies in order to increase the chance that it can enjoy the longer-term benefits of dominance. A merger that creates or preserves dominance may also reduce the merged firm’s longer-term incentives to improve its products and services.

A merger can result in durable market power and long-term harm to competition even when it initially provides short-term benefits to some market participants. Thus, the Agencies will consider not just the impact of the merger holding fixed factors like product quality and the behavior of other industry participants, but they may also consider the (often longer term) impact of the merger on market power and industry dynamics. Important dynamic competitive effects can arise through the entry, investment, innovation, and terms offered by the merged firm and other industry participants, even when the Agencies cannot predict specific reactions and responses with precision. If the ultimate result of the merger is to protect or preserve dominance by limiting opportunities for rivals, reducing competitive constraints, or preventing competitive disruption, then the Agencies will approach the merger with a heightened degree of scrutiny. The degree of scrutiny and concern will increase in proportion to the strength and durability of the dominant firm’s market power.

2.6.A. Entrenching a Dominant Position

Raising Barriers to Entry or Competition

A merger may create or enhance barriers to entry or expansion by rivals that limit the capabilities or competitive incentives of other firms. Barriers to entry can entrench a dominant position even if the nature of future entry is uncertain, if the identities of future entrants are unknown, or if there is more than one mechanism through which the merged firm might create entry barriers. Some examples of ways in which a merger may raise barriers to entry or competition include:

• Increasing Switching Costs
  The costs associated with changing suppliers (often referred to as switching costs) can be an important barrier to competition. A merger may increase switching costs if it makes it more difficult for customers to switch away from the dominant firm’s product or service, or when it gives the dominant firm control of something customers use to switch providers or of something that lowers the overall cost to customers of switching providers. For example, if a dominant firm merges with a complementary product that interoperates with the dominant firm’s competitors, it could reduce interoperability, harming competition for customers who value the complement.

• Interfering With the Use of Competitive Alternatives
  A dominant position may be threatened by a service that customers use to work with multiple providers of similar or overlapping bundles of products and services. If a dominant firm acquires a service that supports the use of multiple providers, it could degrade its utility or availability or could modify the service to steer customers to its own products, entrenching its dominant position. For example, a closed messaging communication service might acquire a product that allowed users to send and receive messages over several competing services through a single user interface, which facilitates competition. The Agencies would examine whether the acquisition would entrench the messaging service’s market power by leading the merged firm to degrade the product or otherwise reduce its effectiveness as a cross-service tool, thus reducing competition.

• Depriving Rivals of Scale Economies or Network Effects
  Scale economies and network effects can serve as a barrier to entry and competition. Depriving rivals of access to scale economies and network effects can therefore entrench a dominant position. If a merger enables a dominant firm to reduce would-be rivals’ access to additional scale or customers by acquiring a product that affects access such as a customer acquisition channel, the merged firm can limit the ability of rivals to improve their own products and compete more effectively. [Endnote 36] Limiting access by rivals to customers in the short run can lead to long run entrenchment of a dominant position and tend to create monopoly power.

  For example, if two firms operate in a market in which network effects are significant but in which rivals voluntarily interconnect, their merger can create an entity with a large enough user base that it may have the incentive to end voluntary interconnection. Such a strategy can lessen competition and harm trading partners by creating or entrenching dominance in this market. This can be the case even if the merging firms did not appear to have a dominant position prior to the merger because their interoperability practices strengthened rivals.

Eliminating a Nascent Competitive Threat

A merger may involve a dominant firm acquiring a nascent competitive threat—namely, a firm that could grow into a significant rival, facilitate other rivals’ growth, or otherwise lead to a reduction in its power. [Endnote 37] In some cases, the nascent threat may be a firm that provides a product or service similar to the acquiring firm that does not substantially constrain the acquiring firm at the time of the merger but has the potential to grow into a more significant rival in the future. In other cases, factors such as network effects, scale economies, or switching costs may make it extremely difficult for a new entrant to offer all of the product features or services at comparable quality and terms that an incumbent offers. The most likely successful threats in these situations can be firms that initially avoid directly entering the dominant firm’s market, instead specializing in (a) serving a narrow customer segment, (b) offering services that only partially overlap with those of the incumbent, or (c) serving an overlapping customer segment with distinct products or services.

Firms with niche or only partially overlapping products or customers can grow into longer-term threats to a dominant firm. Once established in its niche, a nascent threat may be able to add features or serve additional customer segments, growing into greater overlap of customer segments or features over time, thereby intensifying competition with the dominant firm. A nascent threat may also facilitate customers aggregating additional products and services from multiple providers that serve as a partial alternative to the incumbent’s offering. Thus, the success and independence of the nascent threat may both provide for a direct threat of competition by the niche or nascent firm and may facilitate competition or encourage entry by other, potentially complementary providers that may provide a partial competitive constraint. In this way, the nascent threat supports what may be referred to as “ecosystem” competition. In this context, ecosystem competition refers to a situation where an incumbent firm that offers a wide array of products and services may be partially constrained by other combinations of products and services from one or more providers, even if the business model of those competing services is different.

Nascent threats may be particularly likely to emerge during technological transitions. Technological transitions can render existing entry barriers less relevant, temporarily making incumbents susceptible to competitive threats. For example, technological transitions can create temporary opportunities for entrants to differentiate or expand their offerings based on their alignment with new technologies, enabling them to capture network effects that otherwise insulate incumbents from competition. A merger in this context may lessen competition by preventing or delaying any such beneficial shift or by shaping it so that the incumbent retains its dominant position. For example, a dominant firm might seek to acquire firms to help it reinforce or recreate entry barriers so that its dominance endures past the technological transition. Or it might seek to acquire nascent threats that might otherwise gain sufficient customers to overcome entry barriers. In evaluating the potential for entrenching dominance, the Agencies take particular care to preserve opportunities for more competitive markets to emerge during such technological shifts.

Separate from and in addition to its Section 7 analysis, the Agencies will consider whether the merger violates Section 2 of the Sherman Act. For example, under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, a firm that may challenge a monopolist may be characterized as a “nascent threat” even if the impending threat is uncertain and may take several years to materialize. [Endnote 38] The Agencies assess whether the merger is reasonably capable of contributing significantly to the preservation of monopoly power in violation of Section 2, which turns on whether the acquired firm is a nascent competitive threat. [Endnote 39]

2.6.B. Extending a Dominant Position into Another Market

The Agencies also examine the risk that a merger could enable the merged firm to extend a dominant position from one market into a related market, thereby substantially lessening competition or tending to create a monopoly in the related market. For example, the merger might lead the merged firm to leverage its position by tying, bundling, conditioning, or otherwise linking sales of two products. A merger may also raise barriers to entry or competition in the related market, or eliminate a nascent competitive threat, as described above. For example, prior to a merger, a related market may be characterized by scale economies but still experience moderate levels of competition. If the merged firm takes actions to induce customers of the dominant firm’s product to also buy the related product from the merged firm, the merged firm may be able to gain dominance in the related market, which may be supported by increased barriers to entry or competition that result from the merger.

These concerns can arise notwithstanding that the acquiring firm already enjoys the benefits associated with its dominant position. The prospect of market power in the related market may strongly affect the merged firm’s incentives in a way that does not align with the interests of its trading partners, both in terms of strategies that create dominance for the related product and in the form of reduced incentives to invest in its products or provide attractive terms for them after dominance is attained. In some cases, the merger may also further entrench the firm’s original dominant position, for example if future competition requires the provision of both products.

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If the merger raises concerns that its effect may be to entrench or extend a dominant position, then any claim that the merger also provides competitive benefits will be evaluated under the rebuttal framework in Section 3. For example, the framework of Section 3 would be used to evaluate claims that a merger would generate cost savings or quality improvements that would be passed through to make their products more competitive or would otherwise create incentives for the merged firm to offer better terms. The Agencies’ analysis will consider the fact that the incentives to pass through benefits to customers or offer attractive terms are affected by competition and the extent to which entry barriers insulate the merged firm from effective competition. It will also consider whether any claimed benefits are specific to the merger, or whether they could be instead achieved through contracting or other means.

[Endnote 32] FTC v. Procter & Gamble Co., 386 U.S. 568, 577-578 (1967); see, e.g., Fruehauf, 603 F.2d at 353 (the “entrenchment of a large supplier or purchaser” can be an “essential” showing of a Section 7 violation).

[Endnote 33] Ford, 405 U.S. at 571 (condemning acquisition by dominant firm to obtain a foothold in another market when coupled with incentive to create and maintain barriers to entry into that market).

[Endnote 34] See, e.g., United States v. Grinnell Corp., 384 U.S. 563 (1966) (acquisitions are among the types of conduct that may violate the Sherman Act).

[Endnote 35] See, e.g., id. at 570-71.

[Endnote 36] The Agencies’ focus here is on the artificial acquisition of network participants that occurs directly as a result of the merger, as opposed to future network growth that may occur through competition on the merits.

[Endnote 37] The Agencies assess acquisitions of nascent competitive threats by non-dominant firms under the other Guidelines.

[Endnote 38] United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (en banc) (per curiam).

[Endnote 39] See id. at 79 (“[I]t would be inimical to the purpose of the Sherman Act to allow monopolists free reign to squash nascent, albeit unproven, competitors at will.......”).