Comments of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch at Wednesday’s American Bar Association meeting

“What we will not accept is the idea that the mere act of divestiture is enough –that if companies simply spin off a few assets, we will withdraw our objections and the merger can proceed. That simply isn’t true. The Department of Justice is not interested in settling for the sake of settling; we are willing to settle only when we have a high degree of confidence that an agreement will preserve competition and protect consumers in every market that a merger affects. The more complex the deal – and the more markets it potentially endangers – the greater our skepticism that divestiture will safeguard competition. And if we believe that no good solution exists, then we will prosecute our suits to the very end.”