Report on past event

The Antitrust Division has been extraordinarily busy in our daily efforts to protect consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs through sound and vigorous antitrust enforcement and competition advocacy throughout the government.  Apart from our direct enforcement efforts, the Division has implemented a wide range of initiatives designed to advance competition both nationally and internationally.  These efforts do not always draw the same interest as our enforcement cases, but can be just as essential, if not more so, to our efforts to protect American consumers and businesses.  

In testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons described the agency's enforcement of antitrust laws, advocacy work, and the public hearings it is hosting on a variety of competition and consumer protection issues. And he outlined a series of notable victories in stopping anticompetitive mergers and conduct. The widespread use of technology and data often offer consumer benefits, but may also raise new competition issues, according to the testimony.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) plugged his STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act, S. 3157, which would override local rules and limit fees for installing 5G infrastructure. But despite Chairman Thune talking it up, local officials seem to have succeeded at beating back the legislation through steady opposition — although they failed to stop the Federal Communications Commission's vote approving a similar regulatory measure. Opponents of the bill may have run out the clock. No hearing is scheduled, and there's scant time before this current session of Congress ends.

Department of Justice Antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons and European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager sat down for a meeting in Washington, a moment captured in photo proof posted to Vestager's Twitter feed.

The debate over the right approach to privacy took center stage during the Federal Trade Commission’s inaugural hearing on competition. David Vladeck and Howard Beales, both former directors of the agency’s consumer protection bureau, clashed over whether the FTC requires a bigger stick when it comes to privacy enforcement. Vladeck argued the agency needs the power to impose civil penalties from the get-go. “I think that a civil penalty, for example, against Google or Facebook initially would have had a deterrent value,” Vladeck said. “Facebook is currently under investigation again.

The Federal Trade Commission kicked off a series of hearings to discuss whether the agency’s competition and consumer protection policies should change to better reflect new technologies and companies. FTC Chairman Joseph Simons expressed openness to a new approach. “The broad antitrust consensus that has existed within the antitrust community, in relatively stable form for the last 25 years, is being challenged,” Chairman Simons said.

The United States Senate Committee on Intelligence convened on Sept 5 to review the practices of internet platform companies, especially as they relate to protecting against any further election interference. What was notable was who refused to participate: the alpha dog of the internet—Google. Instead of an open back-and-forth that would educate both the senators and the public, Google determined that written testimony from their general counsel was sufficient.

At a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, senators had no shortage of complaints for Facebook and Twitter. They decried the platforms’ vulnerability to foreign influence, their arcane handling of user data, and the perception that they buried conservative voices. Congress wanted to send a signal that Silicon Valley would no longer get a free pass — and that the laissez faire environment that has allowed them to reap billions in profits despite the vitriolic culture that social media has engendered was not guaranteed to last. 

House Commerce Committee Republicans accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives. The charge drew rebukes from Democrats during a Congressional hearing that illustrated how partisan lines are increasingly being drawn on social media.  Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, repeatedly denied the accusations as Republicans suggested Twitter’s algorithms suppress conservative viewpoints and discriminate against Republican voices. Rep Mike Doyle (D-PA) called the idea that social media services exhibit a partisan slant a “load of crap.”

During his second day of Senate confirmation hearings, Judge Brett Kavanaugh defended his dissent in a federal court decision that upheld the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 net neutrality rules. Pressed by Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) why he disagreed with the rest of his colleagues on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that the Federal Communications Commission was within its authority to create the rules, Judge Kavanaugh said he was simply following legal precedent and wasn't looking to strip the agency of its power.