Don’t clear the clearers

AT THE peak of the financial crisis, in 2008, the Office of Fair Trading objected to a merger between Lloyds TSB and HBOS, two big British banks, saying that competition would suffer. The finding was overruled by the British government (on advice from the Bank of England, among others), which judged that a merger would increase financial stability. The ideal response to the proposed friendly merger between Deutsche Börse (DB) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE) would be a mirror image of the treatment of the Lloyds-HBOS tie-up. If Europe’s trustbusters bless the deal, governments should block it unless its backers allay concerns about financial stability.