Last week, the merger cleared American antitrustlegislation and now only needs the approval of both sets of shareholders.
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But after more than a century of intervening to keep markets honest, U.S. antitrustlegislation is proving inadequate to the task.
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The possible measure needs to be approved by the European Commission, which is in charge of overseeing the application of antitrustlegislation.
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Yet the Justice Department, which is responsible for regulating near-monopolies like Amazon and applying U.S. antitrustlegislation, is ignoring Amazon's harrying of Hachette.
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One problem is current antitrustlegislation focuses on what the market share of the combined entity would be to determine whether it would hurt competition.
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The ruling, in line with earlier verdicts, could make it more difficult for the Commission to use antitrustlegislation to extend the EU single market.
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The significance of the decision from the country's Bundeskartellamt -the federal cartel office that handles antitrust actions -notably pairs privacy and antitrustlegislation.