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SIFMA’s Asset Management Group (SIFMA AMG) today issued the following statement from Lindsey Keljo, Head of SIFMA AMG, regarding a Statement filed today by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice DOJ) in the State of Texas, et al. v. Blackrock Inc., State Street Corporation, and The Vanguard Group case:
“We respectfully disagree with the conclusions drawn in the FTC and DOJ’s Statement. We appreciate the FTC and DOJ’s acknowledgment that asset managers serve a crucial role in America’s world-leading capital markets, and that ordinary investment – regardless of size – and corporate governance activity is completely appropriate and permitted under antitrust laws. We also support FTC/DOJ’s reaffirmation that an across-the-board limitation on common ownership in a single industry would be inappropriate and fraught with unintended costs and consequences. We disagree, however, with the Statement’s efforts to paint the asset managers’ actions in this case as anything but passive investment and reiterate the conclusion drawn in our March 24 amicus brief that the Court should dismiss the Plaintiffs’ Clayton Act Section 7 claim.”
