The lede: When Yellow Corp collapsed into Chapter 11 in August 2023 — the largest trucking failure in U.S. history — it didn't just eliminate a carrier. It eliminated roughly 10% of national less-than-truckload capacity and a network of irreplaceable freight terminals in one stroke. Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, every terminal sale above the filing threshold gets reviewed by DOJ or FTC before it closes. That review happened. What didn't happen was a second request, a blocked deal, or a divestiture condition. XPO walked away with 28 properties for roughly $918 million, Estes Express took 24 for about $249 million, Saia grabbed a comparable slate, and Knight-Swift picked up the rest — all cleared with no publicly reported antitrust friction. In a market where terminal real estate is the actual moat (you cannot route LTL freight without a dense door network), regulators let the survivors of a bankruptcy carve up the loser's infrastructure with barely a glance. That's the policy story: enforcement that didn't show up.
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