Senator Hawley Introduces The 'Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act'

Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced the Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act, new legislation to take back control from big business and return it to the American people. Senator Hawley’s bill will crack down on mergers and acquisitions by mega-corporations and strengthen antitrust enforcement to pursue the breakup of dominant, anticompetitive firms. The bill would:

• Ban all mergers and acquisitions by companies with market capitalization exceeding $100 billion
  
  • Example: Google could not purchase Waze and incorporate it into the Maps app
• Empower the Federal Trade Commission to designate “dominant digital firms” exercising dominant market power in particular internet markets, which will be prohibited from buying out potential competitors
  
  • Example: Facebook’s dominance in social networking should prevent it from acquiring startups seeking to build new social media platforms
• Prohibit dominant digital firms from privileging their own search results over those of competitors without explicit disclosure
  
  • Example: Google could not promote its own reviews over Yelp reviews without disclosing the affiliation up front
• Reform the Sherman and Clayton Acts to make clear that direct evidence of anticompetitive conduct is sufficient to support an antitrust claim, which will allow enforcers to effectively pursue the breakup of dominant firms and prevent antitrust cases from devolving into battles between economists 
  
  • Example: Facebook’s complete acquisition of a major competitor, Instagram, should be sufficient to justify antitrust action without needing to bring in specialists to define the “social networking market"
• Replace the outdated numerically-focused standard for evaluating antitrust cases, which allows giant conglomerates to escape scrutiny by focusing on short-term considerations, with a standard emphasizing the protection of competition in the US
• Clarify that “vertical” mergers are not exempt from antitrust scrutiny
  
  • Example: Amazon could not acquire additional companies in its supply chain
• Drastically increase antitrust penalties by requiring companies that lose federal antitrust suits to forfeit all their profits resulting from monopolistic conduct