Ab­b­Vie-Al­ler­gan com­plete, but crit­ics con­tin­ue to raise an­ti-com­pet­i­tive con­cerns

The Ab­b­vie-Al­ler­gan mega-merg­er may now be com­plete, but its crit­ics haven’t had their last say.

In a 7-page let­ter to the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion, Cal­i­for­nia At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Xavier Be­cer­ra called in­to ques­tion the reme­dies the fed­er­al agency im­posed to solve the an­ti-trust con­cerns in­trin­sic in the $63 bil­lion deal.

He said the agency did not fol­low its own “best prac­tices” when it comes to the merg­er. Yet even these prac­tices — now com­mon­place in some form or an­oth­er — have con­sis­tent­ly failed to cur­tail an­ti-com­pet­i­tive and price-rais­ing po­ten­tial, Be­cer­ra ar­gued, and should be stud­ied thor­ough­ly in an ef­fort to come up with new fix­es.

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