The case for a tighter merger policy

<p>Recent British Governments of both Left and Right have been agreed that merger policy is in need of review. The late Labour Government's concern over the issue led to their production of a substantial Green Paper on monopolies and merger policy (HMSO(1978)), in which they judged there to be a strong case for adopting a more stringent policy towards the merging of large private sector companies (an attitude reiterated in Opposition by Mr Roy Hattersley in his speech to the British Association's 1980 meeting, when he called once more for "a stronger anti-merger policy"). The documents specific proposals for policy change were however rather modest ones (in the view of some, excessively so-see, for instance, O'Brien (1978) and Cowling (1978): nevertheless, they met with a hostile response from some individual critics and from both NEDO and the CBI.</p>