President Biden this week finally appointed a replacement for Federal Trade Commissioner Rohit Chopra, so the acolyte of Sen. Elizabeth Warren can move on to harass businesses as the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Meantime, the commission continues to move full speed ahead.

On Wednesday Democratic commissioners voted 3-2 to withdraw vertical merger guidelines that the agency had adopted in conjunction with the Justice Department in June 2020. The 14-page guidelines, which followed six months of...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission seal is seen at a news conference at FTC Headquarters in Washington.

Photo: yuri gripas/Reuters

President Biden this week finally appointed a replacement for Federal Trade Commissioner Rohit Chopra, so the acolyte of Sen. Elizabeth Warren can move on to harass businesses as the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Meantime, the commission continues to move full speed ahead.

On Wednesday Democratic commissioners voted 3-2 to withdraw vertical merger guidelines that the agency had adopted in conjunction with the Justice Department in June 2020. The 14-page guidelines, which followed six months of public comment and hearings, explained how the government would apply antitrust law to acquisitions of businesses that don’t directly compete.

The Biden FTC doesn’t have time for such tedious due process. It withdrew the guidelines after less than a week of public comment, which was pro forma. Commissioners couldn’t possibly have reviewed the comments, but the Biden FTC is run by progressives in a hurry and their policy change was a foregone conclusion.

As the Consumer Technology Association explains in a comment, the 2020 guidelines provide companies considering acquisitions with legal certainty along with “clear and transparent rules of the road for industry.” A sudden shift in the government’s approach “would stifle companies’ ability to plan, invest, and innovate.”

It adds: “Prior to 2020, guidance on vertical mergers had become dated, and companies subject to antitrust merger review could not predict with certainty the analytical framework that government agencies would apply in the review process” and “withdrawing the Guidelines would return the market to this untenable situation and discourage competitively beneficial activity.”

Democrats think uncertainty is a virtue because they hope it will chill deal-making. Then the commission doesn’t have to go through the hard work of reviewing acquisitions and conjuring a reason to challenge them. Mr. Chopra in a dissent opposing the guidelines in 2020 criticized its statement that “vertical mergers often benefit consumers.”

Democrats believe the agency should focus on merger harm to competitors no matter the benefits to consumers. But courts have largely rejected this view, which is why the last vertical merger that was successfully challenged in court was in 1972. Democrats know they’re unlikely to win cases if they go to court, so they’re instead trying to stop businesses with pre-emptive re-regulation.