AGN Allergan plc

By Jonathan D. Rockoff 

Allergan Chief Executive Brent Saunders criticized as "un-American" and "capricious" the new Treasury Department rules that scuttled the drug company's $150 billion tie-up with Pfizer Inc.

"The rules are focused on the wrong thing: Our government should be focused on making America competitive on a global stage, not building a wall locking companies into an uncompetitive tax situation," Mr. Saunders said in an interview.

New York-based Pfizer had pursued Allergan in large part to assume Allergan's Irish tax domicile, thereby lowering its corporate tax rate. After agreeing to a merger last November, the companies had said they structured their combination to fit within U.S. tax law and federal tax regulations.

Yet the planned move by Pfizer, the biggest drug company in the U.S. by sales, generated criticism and was even cited by Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. Then early this week, the Treasury Department issued its latest set of rules aiming to deter such tax-lowering combinations.

"I think it was capricious, and to me, it appears to be very targeted at Pfizer and stopping this deal with Pfizer," Mr. Saunders said. He said such rules put American-based companies at a competitive disadvantage to their foreign rivals, while undermining the rule of law and predictability U.S. companies rely on.

"Changing the rules of the game while the game is being played is un-American," Mr. Saunders said.

Write to Jonathan D. Rockoff at Jonathan.Rockoff@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 06, 2016 14:49 ET (18:49 GMT)

Allergan (NYSE:AGN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024

Allergan (NYSE:AGN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024