MS NOW investigation reveals DOJ appointees overruling career antitrust lawyers to clear corporate mergers

On July 9, 2026, MS NOW reported that Trump administration political appointees at the Justice Department have been overruling career antitrust attorneys who proposed lawsuits or deeper reviews of pending corporate mergers, according to three people briefed on internal deliberations. Career staff in the Antitrust Division had prepared to challenge an aerospace parts merger and to require standard divestitures from other merging firms, but department leadership is instead moving to clear the deals without full review. Two mergers under discussion are the proposed tie-up of Mexican low-cost carriers Viva Aerobus and Volaris and the merger of Italian firm Saipem with U.K.-based Subsea7, which ExxonMobil, Petrobras, and TotalEnergies have formally opposed as anticompetitive.

Two sources named Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who has no prior antitrust enforcement experience, as the main driver of the non-enforcement push; a third attributed the decisions instead to Charlie Beller, deputy assistant attorney general for civil mergers, who reportedly told line prosecutors that the department's political leadership "does not want any civil antitrust enforcement at all." Bill Baer, a former Obama-era antitrust division chief, called the approach "unilateral surrender on antitrust enforcement." Elements of the reporting were corroborated the previous day by Bloomberg, which separately detailed DOJ leadership under Woodward stalling a challenge to aerospace supplier TransDigm's proposed acquisition of Stellant Systems and rejecting a prior recommendation to sue over a tie-up between two auto-diagnostics companies.