Bill introduced to crack down on mergers that have harmful side effects

U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin has introduced legislation calling for reviews of already completed company mergers to determine whether they have reduced competition, increased prices, resulted in large job losses, or had other harmful effects.

The STOP Bad Mergers Act would require the Federal Trade Commission to continuously monitor previous mergers, and if it’s determined they now violate antitrust laws, the agency would have the authority to remedy the situation, including by requiring divestitures and breakups.

Among other things, the legislation calls for Government Accountability Office studies on consolidation in the manufacturing sector and requires more information be provided to the FTC and Department of Justice to ensure they can evaluate the effects of mergers on workers.

In a news release Thursday, Baldwin said the legislation stemmed from the 2018 purchase of Wisconsin-based Rayovac by Energizer, which Baldwin said resulted in reduced competition in the battery marketplace, higher prices for consumers, and hundreds of layoffs.

At the time of the merger, Rayovac operated battery manufacturing plants in Portage and Fennimore employing more than 600 people. But last year, Energizer announced it would be closing the two former Rayovac facilities and was moving the work outside the U.S. or to a nonunion plant in North Carolina.

“The Federal Trade Commission is supposed to protect Americans from mergers that reduce competition and lay off workers, but as we’ve seen in Wisconsin, that is not always the case,” Baldwin said.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bill introduced to crack down on mergers with harmful side effects