Debate grows among experts over merging America's merger regulators

What to know: Both the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are charged with enforcing federal antitrust laws.

• DOJ has sole jurisdiction in a small number of industries, including telecom and airlines. For everything else, the two agencies horse-trade via a process called clearance.
• Companies typically don't know which agency will review their merger proposal, sometimes until there's a media leak.

Driving the news: During the NYT DealBook Summit earlier this week, former DOJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim asked current FTC chair Lina Khan if we still need "competition in the enforcement of competition."

• Khan acknowledged areas of overlap but argued for maintaining a "complementary" status quo in which the FTC has some broader civil authorities than the DOJ (which itself has the benefit of criminal prosecutorial authority).
• She also echoed a recent GAO report that found there is little conflict between the two agencies, despite past friction.

Zoom in: Axios followed up last night with Delrahim, who is complimentary toward Khan but believes she's wrong on this issue.

• He says all antitrust should fall under DOJ, for the sake of market certainty and regulatory efficacy, and that the FTC could be bolstered via the additions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

• Delrahim also believes there's bipartisan support for such a move, and noted that new House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) introduced antitrust consolidation legislation in 2021.
• Ashley Gold, who covers tech policy for Axios, says she doesn't expect Congress to make the change but does think it could happen organically by not increasing FTC funding at the same levels as it does the DOJ.

The bottom line: Antitrust regulators are inserting themselves more into the M&A landscape, which means they will become more subject to scrutiny.