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To determine if a firm has “monopoly power,” the lower courts generally require that a firm has a minimum market share of between 70% and 80%, according to the Justice Department.

In 1997, the Staples/Office Depot merger was blocked, and given that OfficeMax was a major player, and local vendors still were a force, I doubt that threshold was met. Blocked again in 2016, even though by then Amazon was a major force, and there was NO CHANCE that Staples and Office Depot had that kind of market share. Now, it might have to do with how you define a market. If you consider "big box chain office supplies stores" to be discrete, with local and online vendors being a different category, maybe the numbers could be jiggered. Or, it could be that as there is no hard number written into the law (and how you calculate the number could also be argued), that politics entered into the mix.

Regarding cars, many of us remember when the Big Three had 70%+ easily. Nowhere close, now. I am not even sure why Stellantis/Chrysler is considered part of the Big Three anymore.

There are different laws for prosecuting monopoly power versus a merger. Also, this is different in that the auto companies are buyers of labor, not sellers. I don't think there would be any antitrust laws that could stop the auto companies from shutting down if they wanted to.