Smaller U.S. mergers to be scrutinized

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. antitrust regulators have lowered the dollar value of mergers that must be reported to the government to $63.4 million from $65.2 million, the Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday.

The threshold dropped because it is tied to the U.S. gross domestic product, which fell in the past fiscal year, said Bob Jones, the deputy assistant director of the Federal Trade Commission's premerger notification office.

The FTC and Justice Department divide the work of assessing mergers to ensure they do not violate antitrust law.

Jones said it was impossible to say if the small drop would lead to an increase in the number of mergers reported.

"Obviously, we've been down because of the recession. Hopefully, that'll cease and we'll have more deals coming through," he said.

A credit crunch sharply reduced the number of mergers last year. As of mid-December, global mergers and acquisitions were $1.968 trillion for 2009, down 32 percent from full-year 2008 and down 53 percent from the record high in 2007, according to data from Thomson Reuters.

A tepid recovery is expected this year.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Andre Grenon)