It does if they decommission most of them in the name of "efficiency". You may recall the same thing happening to Twitter at the behest of its new owner, who happens to be the new owner here as well.
...because the process started over a year ago, and just got regulatory approval last month? I'm not sure what you're expecting here. Unless that enforcement action specifically barred them from acquiring companies, why should they be prevented from acquiring companies? It's like asking why someone who was fined for speeding could still drive, when license suspension wasn't part of their punishment.
>Capital One announced in February 2024 that it had agreed to acquire Discover Financial in an all-stock deal worth $35.3 billion.[94]
>[...] The deal was approved by U.S. banking regulators in April 2025.[99]
>The complaint alleges that Fairbank failed to report his sizable stock windfall to federal antitrust authorities and illegally finalized the acquisition before the agencies could investigate.
He got $20M worth of shares of Capital One stock which is overall worth $76B, so yeah, I'm quite dismissive of the crime of not following antitrust regulations for a transaction involving 0.03% of company value. The authorities were never going to have anything to say about these transactions, they're just mad they didn't get the opportunity to choose to not do anything. Sure, fine him, but this is like a parking ticket.
Our regulatory bodies at this point are simply a fig-leaf, a performance of accountability for too-big-to-fail corporations. Oh sure they hand out a fine here or there. Nothing substantial, certainly nothing that will change the behavior of business.
America is a gerontocracy giving birth to a corporatocracy.
