WASHINGTON -- Merging companies will get a shortcut to ending antitrust investigations under a Justice Department change meant to make the government review process less burdensome for businesses.

The department's antitrust division plans to announce on Thursday a new model for streamlining merger reviews that would quickly focus on the most apparent ways a deal might diminish competition, according to department officials. Antitrust enforcers won't use the targeted approach in every case, but the process will allow some deals to clear federal scrutiny earlier, the officials said.

The move underscores the Trump administration's warmth toward dealmaking, which some critics say will erect roadblocks to challenging anticompetitive mergers. The Justice Department also has favored settling investigations and lawsuits rather than litigating disputes, recently settling a major antitrust lawsuit with Live Nation just a few days after its trial had started.

Mergers valued more than $133 million must be reported to federal antitrust enforcers. While Trump's enforcers have challenged only a few deals in court, they still conduct in-depth investigations on dozens of deals that could diminish competition. Each full probe can take as long as a year.

The Biden administration expanded how much information it wanted from merging parties and sued to block deals in court rather than crafting settlements that allowed them to close. Most Democrats and Big Tech watchdogs championed that approach, but Wall Street complained that it discouraged many reasonable mergers.

The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission opened extended investigations, sometimes called a second request, into 2% of the 2,000 deals disclosed to the government last year, according to federal data.

"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.

Under the new policy, the department will commit to seeking records about the deal from fewer executives or employees. It would make a decision about whether to close or expand a merger investigation within about five weeks of receiving the corporate records, officials said.

The department has already used the new approach this year in two deals, allowing them to close sooner, they said.

The Justice Department recently allowed 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.

Write to Dave Michaels at dave.michaels@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 23, 2026 09:02 ET (13:02 GMT)

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