Delrahim Rejects Need for Antitrust Overhaul

Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Makan Delrahim shot down the idea that new antitrust laws are necessary to address large tech companies, telling an audience of industry leaders that existing rules are ”perfectly equipped, at least for now.” Critics argue that tech companies have amassed significant market power through their vast networks of users and pools of data, but that their dominance is overlooked because their services are free or inexpensive. Delrahim contends, however, that price isn’t the only way government officials can measure how firms affect consumers. Behavior that would “decrease substantially” consumer choice or innovation would be “fair game for current antitrust laws under current precedent,” Delrahim said. “I don’t think some of this broader debate that has come up in the last three or four years that we need a whole new set of antitrust — I don't think that's appropriate,” he said.