Justice Department to seek fewer records and set five-week timeline for merger reviews

New policy narrows scope of second requests and commits to decision within about five weeks

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s antitrust division plans to announce on Thursday a new model for streamlining merger reviews that officials said would seek records from fewer executives or employees and commit to a faster decision.

Under the policy, the department will decide whether to close or expand a merger investigation within about five weeks of receiving corporate records from the merging parties, according to department officials. The targeted approach will not be used in every case but will allow some deals to clear federal scrutiny earlier.

“Streamlining the second request process, where appropriate, is a commonsense way to reduce administrative burden without undermining DOJ’s investigations,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said.

Mergers valued at more than $133 million must be reported to federal antitrust enforcers. While the Trump administration has challenged only a few deals in court, enforcers still conduct in-depth investigations into dozens of transactions that could diminish competition. Each full probe, called a second request, can take as long as a year, and the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission opened such investigations into 2% of the roughly 2,000 deals disclosed to the government last year, according to federal data.

The department has already used the new approach this year in two deals, allowing them to close sooner, officials said. They cited the Justice Department’s recent decision to allow Paramount’s proposed $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Outstanding merger probes include Transocean’s proposed $5.8 billion purchase of rival offshore drilling services firm Valaris.

The quicker review timeline follows a Biden-era approach that expanded how much information enforcers sought from merging parties and sued to block deals rather than crafting settlements that permitted them to close. Most Democrats and advocates for strict oversight of large technology companies championed that approach, but Wall Street complained that it discouraged many reasonable mergers, according to department officials and public statements.

The Trump administration’s broader antitrust posture includes a preference for settling investigations and lawsuits rather than litigating. It recently settled a major antitrust lawsuit with Live Nation a few days after the trial had started.

Some critics say the streamlined review policy will erect roadblocks to challenging anticompetitive mergers.