Summary: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a dual mission: protecting the public from unfair and deceptive trade practices and promoting competition in the marketplace. FTC's consumer protection and competition activities are now carried out in the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in its 10 regional offices across the country. In June 1998, FTC approved a proposal to restructure its regional operations, including reconfiguring, closing, and merging several of the regional offices. Under the plan, FTC's regional work on competition or antitrust matters would be done primarily at three proposed regional antitrust centers most probably in San Francisco, Cleveland, and New York City with the other regions continuing to do this work only on a limited basis. This report discusses (1) FTC's rationale for proposing the restructuring, (2) the process FTC followed in developing its restructuring proposal, (3) the factors that FTC used and could have used in deciding how to restructure, (4) other options to the proposed restructuring identified in earlier FTC studies or by Boston and Denver regional officials, and (5) the views of selected stakeholders on the impact that the proposed restructuring could have in the areas covered by the Boston and Denver regional offices.
