US Clears the Way for Antitrust Crackdown

The Obama administration signaled yesterday that it would take an aggressive stand against companies that engage in anti-competitive behavior, reversing looser policies of the past eight years that critics called friendly toward big firms. Christine Varney, head of the antitrust division at the Justice Department, announced that the agency would revoke a 2008 report that made it difficult to pursue antitrust cases against corporations. She said the guidelines and lax enforcement over the past decade helped contribute to the economic crisis. "The recent developments in the marketplace should make it clear that we can no longer rely upon the marketplace alone to ensure that competition and consumers will be protected," Varney said in a speech at the Center for American Progress. But doing so may prove difficult, observers said. The president's desire to clamp down on big corporate mergers and to guard against anti-competitive behaviors will be challenged by an economic recession that some analysts predict could lead to more pressure for corporations to consolidate, further cutting competition. During the Bush administration, nearly every high-tech and telecommunications merger before the antitrust division at the Justice Department was approved.