Antitrust panic helped kill an American robotics pioneer

Antitrust panic helped kill an American robotics pioneer

Antitrust regulators claim to protect competition. Their decision to block Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot did the opposite. It helped drive an American robotics pioneer into bankruptcy last December and pushed it into the arms of a Chinese creditor.Antitrust law is supposed to defend consumers and prevent monopoly abuse. In this case, regulators killed a deal that could have kept iRobot alive, preserved American jobs, and strengthened a U.S. com…