Washington, August 30 (Reuters) – The Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on practices that could harm consumers in the oil pump and try to prevent “illegal” mergers in the oil and gas industry. last week.
A letter from Reuters was sent to White House economic adviser Brian Dessie, who promised to launch an investigation into alleged violations of the “franchise market” and other measures.
In a letter dated August 11, Dessie called on FTC to investigate why “oil prices have risen sharply in the face of falling oil prices rather than falling.”
Kahn replied, “I especially like the high-value practices of the great national chains in the way they were, and I would direct my staff to investigate any of these behavioral signs.
Khan told Dessie that in recent years, she has joined the FCC merger assessments to “enable” significant consolidation in the industry and create ripe conditions for price coordination and other joint ventures.
To address the problem, Khan said the FTC “will identify additional legal theories to oppose the merger of key players in the industry to buy family-owned businesses.”
He said the commission will study policies that require accommodation when merging gas stations in overlapping markets to ensure that it does not encourage further reinforcement and anti-corruption behavior.
To discourage what she called “illegal merger” proposals, Khan said the FTC would re-introduce “prior approval” criteria.
Finally, the commission said it would investigate practices related to franchise gas stations.
“We have to decide whether the energy imbalances that support the big national chains will force their francs to sell gasoline at a higher price,” he said.
(Refer to paragraph quotation from paragraph 4)
By Jeff Mason Report; Edited by Doina Chiacu, Jonathan Otis and Dan Gravel
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