Democrats and liberal activists have succeeded in placing a “dream team” of left-wing anti-monopolists in the Biden administration who are now set to take on Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Google and other large corporations.
The companies now face greater enforcement of antitrust law, new lawsuits and investigations into companies behaving unfairly, restrictions on mergers, and regulators using the bully pulpit to change corporate culture and business practices.
Liberal anti-monopolists now occupy the top positions in all the key antitrust positions forming what many liberals consider a ‘holy trinity’ within the federal government following the Senate confirmation this past week of Jonathan Kanter to be the top antitrust cop at the Justice Department. He joins Lina Khan, the chairwoman at the Federal Trade Commission, and Tim Wu, the head of technology and competition policy in the Biden White House.
The three key officials are expected to work in conjunction to push for an overhaul of the current approach to antitrust by taking more aggressive steps to punish what they see as anti-competitive actors.
“One thing we’ll see with all three of them working together is a much more creative approach to antitrust laws that’s not narrow to consumer welfare and more about asymmetries of power,” said Sarah Miller, the executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, a liberal think tank focused on antitrust issues.
“The financial penalties doled out will likely be much greater going forward, not just a few billion dollars. They’ll enforce the law strongly — no more little kid gloves for the Big Tech companies and others when they hurt people through their actions,” Miller added.
DEMOCRATIC TOP REGULATOR SAYS BREAKING UP BIG TECH COULD A GOOD, ‘CONSERVATIVE’ SOLUTION
Liberal antitrust advocates expect that the Biden administration, the Justice Department, and the trade commission are likely to use their antitrust agenda to tackle larger economic issues that the country is facing.
“The three big players will probably drive even harder at their anti-monopoly agenda because of all the inflation,” said Matt Stoller, an antitrust expert and author of Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.
“Lack of competition drives inflation up, and market concentration makes everything more volatile in terms of pricing, so we’ll probably see more action there,” Stoller said.
Antitrust lawyers told the Washington Examiner they expect one of the first steps Kanter will take in his new role at the Justice Department will be to revoke the Trump administration’s guidelines on vertical mergers, or deals between two companies that aren’t direct competitors, a move likely to result in greater antitrust scrutiny of mergers in the coming months.
Kanter is then expected to work on creating a stronger version of the vertical merger guidelines in coordination with Khan at the trade commission, who already revoked similar guidelines within her agency in September.
Antitrust insiders expect that Kanter will also start new lawsuits tackling monopolistic behavior.
“My guess is Kanter will bring forth new lawsuits because that’s what he does — that’s his background. There’s already one big case against Google and he’ll maybe bring another one against another Big Tech company,” a Republican familiar with the issues said.
The Justice Department last year joined multiple state attorneys general in a long-anticipated antitrust lawsuit against Google alleging it engages in anti-competitive business practices, especially how it has used its search dominance in the online advertising arena to defeat its competitors.
Republicans who favor antitrust reform and a break up of the Big Tech companies cheered the new expected alliance between the three major officials.
“Congressman Buck is happy to see folks in power who will bring stronger antitrust enforcement and new investigations against the Big Tech companies and others,” an aide to Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado told the Washington Examiner.
“We know Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter are close, and that should aid in these efforts,” the aide said. Buck is the top GOP member on the House antitrust panel.
The tech giants themselves are concerned about what Wu, Khan, and Kanter could do and are vocal about the potential downsides of their combined agenda.
“Welcome to the Bermuda Triangle of objective antitrust enforcement. Now all three of them can ride roughshod over the entire U.S. economy,” said Carl Szabo, a vice president and general counsel at NetChoice, an advocacy group that represents companies, including Amazon and Google, that oppose government regulation of online platforms.
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“For conservatives, this will likely hurt them because it will make businesses less willing to support them as they attempt to gain favor with the progressives at the White House, DOJ, and the FTC,” Szabo added.
