No Surprises Here
Over my extended European sojourn, the Antitrust Division of the USDOJ gave its approval to the CME’s acquisition of NYMEX. During the height of the kerfuffle over the Antitrust Division’s letter on exchange ownership of clearing, it was widely conjectured that this signaled that the Division would fight the deal. I disagreed, arguing that the Division would have to approve it if it wanted to maintain even a shred of dignity. There is no way it could approve the CME-CBT tie up in June ’07 and turn around in June ’08 and disapprove CME-NYMEX. And approve it did. One curious thing. There is no announcement of the decision on the Anti Trust Division website, even though there was such an announcement when it approved the CBT deal. Now, that’s interesting.
