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US Is Focused on Regulating Private Equity Like Never Before

An industry that has long escaped scrutiny in Washington has found agencies slow-walking deals and enforcing long-dormant competition laws.

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Illustration: Jay Daniel Wright for Bloomberg Businessweek

Private equity could use a few friends in Washington.

While buyout firms have been busy protecting their lucrative carried interest fee structure in Congress, Biden administration securities, antitrust and broadcast TV regulators have quietly been undermining the industry’s business model by proposing tough rules, slow-walking deals and scrutinizing acquisitions that would consolidate industries or result in job losses.