If they let basically all the oil companies turn back into trusts again in the 90s I don’t see them really stopping this either.
If there’s one business regulation that has to be enforced for the markets to work right it’s anti-trust imo.
I’m not sure I’d argue that the only reason for the oil mergers were restraint of trade, and not having the capital pull to compete with the newer big boys, like Saudi Aramco, Shell, BP and LukOil, which are WAY bigger.
So you’ve got Esso/Exxon + Mobil = ExxonMobil, $269 billion
And Chevron + Gulf + Texaco = Chevron, $159 billion
And Connoco + Phillips = ConocoPhilips, $39 billion
But you’ve still got Marathon ($97 billion), Phillips66 ($102 billion), Valero ($130 billion), Enterprise ($47 billion)
and then there’s the foreign companies, Saudi Aramco ($416 billion), Shell ($397 billion), Chinese National ($393 billion), BP ($304 billion), Lukoil ($144 billion), Gazprom ($119 billion)...