Justice Department Provides Update on Collaboration with State Attorneys General on Review of Local Mergers

The Department of Justice provided the following update on the Antitrust Division's collaboration with state Attorneys General regarding investigations of mergers with predominantly intrastate effects.

"Principles of federalism guide that the Justice Department use its resources to investigate mergers with regional or national implications. However, the Department will sometimes exercise its discretion to investigate local transactions, including when there is an antitrust issue of national significance," said Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr. "When it comes to mergers of national importance, the Department will generally form its own views of the appropriate resolution of an investigation, although it may partner with state enforcers who offer to contribute distinctively to the investigation."

"In our federal system, federal and state law enforcers have different constituencies and distinct competencies. A constructive relationship between antitrust enforcers at both levels includes deferring to the agency of relative competence in matters that impact distinctly federal or local interests," said Deputy Assistant Attorney General G. Charles Beller of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. "The Antitrust Division welcomes leadership from state enforcers in transactions that implicate uniquely local interests, such as when the state is a purchaser that could suffer direct injury or when potential effects on competition are limited to a single state."

Since January 2026, the Antitrust Division's merger review program has:

• Partnered with the Attorneys General of California and Tennessee to enter into consent decrees with merging parties in cement and asphalt industries to resolve potential harm to competition in regions within their states.[1]
• Referred investigations involving asphalt markets in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to those states' Attorneys General, who subsequently reached settlements with the parties addressing their competition concerns in local markets.[2]
• Jointly investigated both local and multistate mergers with state Attorneys General when those mergers present issues justifying both federal and state involvement.
• Consulted and worked closely with state Attorneys General in other merger investigations involving local matters.