Antitrust in an Election Year – 10 Minutes With Makan Delrahim

Below, we have provided the full transcript of an interview with Assistant Attorney General for the US Department of Justice from the final episode of our series, Antitrust In an Election Year: Challenges Ahead.

Leah NYLEN:

Thanks to CCIA and Competition Policy International. I’m Leah Nylen, Politico’s Antitrust reporter. And with me today is Makan Delrahim, the Justice Department’s Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust. Makan, welcome and thanks for joining us.

Makan DELRAHIM:

Good morning, Leah. Thanks so much for having me.

NYLEN:

Great. So let’s start with some really fresh news. Last night the Justice Department filed a petition in Federal Court in Massachusetts, against the management consultancy, Bain & Company, for failing to turn over documents the Division requested as part of its Visa Plaid merger review. Can you tell us a little bit about that action?

DELRAHIM:

Well, all I can say is what was in the press release and the redacted filing that we made in court. I believe, at least I’m told and was surprised, frankly, that it had been more than a quarter of a century since we had actually gone to court to enforce one of our CIDs. One of our important functions is to have the data to properly analyze transactions. And it’s really important for parties to turn over the documents that we require. And so if there’s inappropriate claims of attorney client privilege for some docum