An antitrust bill introduced by Democrats in New York’s state Senate would make it easier to sue Big Tech companies that are abusing their superior position in the industry, even if they don’t technically qualify as a monopoly.
The Twenty-First Century Anti-Trust Act, which was first introduced two years ago, has attracted attention for the sweeping changes it would bring to the state’s laws by allowing “dominant” companies, particularly tech companies, to be sued for abusing their position in the market and for granting the state attorney general a powerful role in enforcing and interpreting the state’s antitrust laws.
Antitrust lawyers at MoloLamken, a New York-based law firm, called it “the most progressive changes to antitrust law in the United States in recent memory.”
The bill could lower the threshold needed to sue and even break up tech giants such as Facebook or Google that are dominant within the social media and search advertising businesses, respectively, but have not been proven to be acting in a monopolistic fashion yet.
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The legislation, which is expected to be voted on this week, delegates new powers to the attorney general to create and implement rules on how to “interpret market shares and other relevant market conditions” of the abuse-of-dominance provision of the law, with a focus on looking out for small- and medium-sized businesses.
The new delegation of rule-making power to the attorney general could create a precedent for other states in their approach to antitrust legislation.
Federal antitrust law, for example, is already dictated in large part by previous court decisions and the rule-making and enforcement of the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
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The bill has been introduced by Democratic state Sen. Michael Gianaris and is being backed by New York’s Attorney General Letitia James along with prominent anti-monopoly groups including the Open Markets Institute and the American Economic Liberties Project.
