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open markets institute
'Colossally Wrong Decision' as Facebook Parent Company Wins Instagram-WhatsApp Antitrust Case
"This court has effectively told every aspiring monopolist that our current justice system is on their side."
Nov 19, 2025
Anti-monopoly advocates are warning that a federal judge's ruling in favor of Facebook parent company Meta in a major antitrust case will have negative repercussions for US consumers by allowing Facebook to continue wielding monopoly power in the social media marketplace.
Judge James Boasberg in the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled Tuesday that the company’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp did not violate US antitrust policy.
Boasberg found that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had not proven Meta holds monopoly power in the personal social networking market, "largely because he folded TikTok and YouTube into the same market and concluded that their popularity reduces Meta’s share below illegal levels," said the American Economic Liberties Project (ALEP).
John Bergmayer, legal director at Public Knowledge, argued that Boasberg's ruling demonstrates a basic misunderstanding about the economics of the social media market.
"The court's opinion reflects a view of the market that is at odds with how digital-platform power operates today," he said. "Meta systematically acquired emerging competitors precisely because direct, head-to-head competition threatened its dominance. Meta’s consolidation strategy deprived consumers of innovative services and prevented the development of a truly competitive social-networking ecosystem."
Nidhi Hegde, executive director of ALEP, described the ruling as a "colossally wrong decision" that "turns a willful blind eye to Meta’s enormous power over social media and the harms that flow from it."
"These deals let Meta fuse Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp into one machine that poisons our children and discourse, bullies publishers and advertisers, and destroys the possibility of healthy online connections with friends and family," she said. "By pretending that TikTok’s rise wipes away over a decade of illegal conduct, this court has effectively told every aspiring monopolist that our current justice system is on their side."
Hegde added that it should now fall upon US Congress to "step in and break up Big Tech, prohibit addictive surveillance algorithms, and create the conditions for building a better future."
Open Markets Institute policy counsel Tara Pincock said Boasberg's ruling was "profoundly misguided," and accused the judge of blocking the FTC from reversing a mistake it made last decade when it signed off on Meta's purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.
"Judge Boasberg erred in concluding that Facebook competes with TikTok and YouTube," said Pincock, a former state assistant attorney general in Utah. "I was part of the bipartisan coalition of states that brought this case alongside the FTC in December 2020, and the court’s framing misrepresents what is at stake. This case has never been about generic 'time and attention.' It is about how people connect, communicate, and build communities—and about how a powerful company abused its dominance to protect itself from competition."
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Judge's Ruling on Google Search Monopoly Decried as 'Slap on the Wrist' for Tech Giant
"You don't find someone guilty of robbing a bank and then sentence him to writing a thank you note for the loot," said one critic.
Sep 03, 2025
A federal judge's Tuesday ruling on tech giant Google has drawn criticism from anti-monopoly advocates who say that it let the company walk away without having to give up its economic stranglehold over online searches and advertising.
As reported by The New York Times, Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google had to share some of its data with competing search platforms, while also placing restrictions on the company's ability to pay to ensure its search engine receives preferential treatment on web browsers and phones.
However, these remedies fell far short of measures requested by the US Department of Justice, which had asked that Google be forced to share more of its data with competitors and to sell off its Chrome web browser.
Nidhi Hegde, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, offered a scathing assessment of Mehta's ruling, and she urged the government to appeal and push for harsher penalties against Google.
"You don't find someone guilty of robbing a bank and then sentence him to writing a thank you note for the loot," she said. "Similarly, you don't find Google liable for monopolization and then write a remedy that lets it protect its monopoly. This feckless remedy to the most storied case of monopolization of the past quarter century is a complete failure of his duty and must be appealed."
She went on to describe Mehta's decision as "bizarre" given that he had "found Google liable for maintaining one of the most consequential and damaging monopolies of the internet era."
Barry Lynn, the executive director of the Open Markets Institute, accused Mehta of letting Google get away with a "slap on the wrist" given the scale of the damage it has caused.
"Google for years has wielded its vast power over all layers of the digital economy to crush competitors, halt innovation, and rob Americans of their right to read, watch, and buy what they want without being manipulated by one of the most powerful corporations in human history," he said. "Judge Mehta's order that Google share search data with competitors and cease entering into exclusive contracts does nothing to right those wrongs."
Like Hegde, Lynn also urged the government to appeal the ruling.
Elise Phillips, policy counsel at the freedom of expression advocacy group Public Knowledge, took aim at Mehta for letting Google maintain control of both Chrome and the Android mobile operating system, even though he concluded that Google had abused its market power to stifle competition.
Phillips also suggested that elected officials needed to pick up the slack when it comes to holding giant corporations accountable for their actions.
"Judge Mehta's remedies decision signals why the courts cannot be the end-all, be-all of antitrust," she said. "Google's anticompetitive behavior, and behavior like it, can and must be confronted by legislation that targets conflicts of interest, self-preferencing, and discrimination online. The American people need sector-specific legislation that addresses these harms and breaks down barriers of entry into online markets, fostering competition, innovation, and choice."
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of human rights organization Amnesty International, also weighed in to express disappointment with Mehta's decision.
"This ruling was a missed chance to rein in Google's power," said Callamard. "Google's toxic business model is built on pervasive surveillance. By tracking people across the web and monetizing their personal data through targeted advertising, the company has severely undermined our right to privacy."
Google was first sued for antitrust violations by the DOJ in 2020 under the first Trump administration, and then again in 2023 under the Biden administration.
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Press Freedom Coalition to FCC: Don't Ditch Checks on Corporate Media Consolidation
The 16 groups urge the agency "to uphold its obligation to promote competition, localism, and diversity in the U.S. media."
Aug 05, 2025
A coalition of 16 civil liberties, press freedom, and labor groups this week urged U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to abandon any plans to loosen media ownership restrictions and warned against opening the floodgates to further corporate consolidation.
Public comments on the National Television Multiple Ownership Rule were due to the Federal Communications Commission by Monday—which is when the coalition wrote to the FCC about the 39% national audience reach cap for U.S. broadcast media conglomerates, and how more mergers could negatively impact "the independence of the nation's press and the vitality of its local journalism."
"In our experience, the past 30 years of media consolidation have not fostered a better environment for local news and information. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 radically changed the radio and television broadcasting marketplace, causing rapid consolidation of radio station ownership," the coalition detailed. "Since the 1996 act, lawmakers and regulators have further relaxed television ownership limits, spurring further waves of station consolidation, the full harms of which are being felt by local newsrooms and the communities they serve."
The coalition highlighted how this consolidation has spread "across the entire news media ecosystem, including newspapers, online news outlets, and even online platforms," and led to "newsroom layoffs and closures, and the related spread of 'news deserts' across the country."
"Over a similar period, the economic model for news production has been undercut by technology platforms owned by the likes of Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta, which have offered an advertising model for better targeting readers, listeners, and viewers, and attracted much of the advertising revenue that once funded local journalism," the coalition noted.
While "lobbyists working for large news media companies argue that further consolidation is the economic answer, giving them the size necessary to compete with Big Tech," the letter argues, "in fact, the opposite appears to be true."
We object."Handing even more control of the public airwaves to a handful of capitulating broadcast conglomerates undermines press freedom." - S. Derek TurnerOur statement: https://www.freepress.net/news/free-press-slams-trump-fccs-broadcast-ownership-proceeding-wildly-dangerous-democracy
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) August 5, 2025 at 12:58 PM
The letter points out that a recent analysis from Free Press—one of the groups that signed the letter—found a "pervasive pattern of editorial compromise and capitulation" at 35 of the largest media and tech companies in the United States, "as owners of massive media conglomerates seek to curry favor with political leadership."
That analysis—released last week alongside a Media Capitulation Index—makes clear that "the interests of wealthy media owners have become so inextricably entangled with government officials that they've limited their news operations' ability to act as checks against abuses of political power," according to the coalition.
In addition to warning about further consolidation and urging the FCC "to uphold its obligation to promote competition, localism, and diversity in the U.S. media," the coalition argued that the agency actually "lacks the authority to change the national audience reach cap," citing congressional action in 2004.
Along with Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron, the letter is signed by leaders at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians - Communications Workers of America, National Coalition Against Censorship, Local Independent Online News Publishers, Media Freedom Foundation, NewsGuild-CWA, Open Markets Institute, Park Center for Independent Media, Project Censored, Reporters Without Borders USA, Society of Professional Journalists, Tully Center for Free Speech, Whistleblower and Source Protection Program at ExposeFacts, and Writers Guild of America East and West.
Free Press also filed its own comments. In a related Tuesday statement, senior economic and policy adviser S. Derek Turner, who co-authored the filing, accused FCC Chair Brendan Carr of "placing a for-sale sign on the public airwaves and inviting media companies to monopolize the local news markets as long as they agree to display political fealty to Donald Trump and the MAGA movement."
"The price broadcast companies have to pay for consolidating further is bending the knee, and the line starts outside of the FCC chairman's office," said Turner. "Trump's autocratic demands seemingly have no bounds, and Carr apparently has no qualms about satisfying them. Carr's grossly partisan and deeply hypocritical water-carrying for Trump has already stained the agency, making it clear that this FCC is no longer independent, impartial, or fair."
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To Counter Trump, Coalition Launches People's AI Action Plan
"The White House AI Action Plan is written by Big Tech interests invested in advancing AI that's used on us, not by us. Today, we are reclaiming agency over the trajectory AI will take."
Jul 22, 2025
In anticipation of U.S. President Donald Trump's Artificial Intelligence Action Plan, over 90 groups focused on consumer protection, economic and environmental justice, labor, and more came together Tuesday to call for an AI blueprint that "delivers on public well-being, shared prosperity, a sustainable future, and security for all."
"We can't let Big Tech and Big Oil lobbyists write the rules for AI and our economy at the expense of our freedom and equality, workers and families' well-being, even the air we breathe and the water we drink—all of which are affected by the unrestrained and unaccountable rollout of AI," says the coalition's website for the new People's AI Action Plan.
"The American people need good, stable jobs, functioning public institutions, safe online spaces for children, and clean, affordable, safe, and reliable energy," the site says. "The American economy needs robust innovation, a level playing field for all, and relief from the tech monopolies who repeatedly sacrifice the interests of everyday people for their own profits."
The site features "actionable ideas for an AI agenda that meets the needs of everyday people," highlighting campaigns and reports from coalition members, including Accountable Tech, AI Now Institute, Color of Change, Demand Progress Education Fund, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Fight for the Future, Friends of the Earth, MediaJustice, National Nurses United, New Disabled South, Open Markets Institute, and Public Citizen.
The 90+ organizations supporting a People's AI Action Plan all have concrete, actionable ideas for an AI agenda that furthers the interests of everyday people and challenges the tech billionaire agenda we’ll see from the White House. Learn more about them: peoplesaiaction.com
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— EPIC (@epic.org) July 22, 2025 at 11:46 AM
"The White House AI Action Plan is written by Big Tech interests invested in advancing AI that's used on us, not by us," said AI Now Institute co-executive directors Sarah Myers West and Amba Kak in a statement. "Today, we are reclaiming agency over the trajectory AI will take: It's time for a People's Action Plan for AI that puts the needs of everyday Americans over corporate profits."
Trump started the process for his AI Action Plan with a January executive order. It is expected to be released on Wednesday.
Citing unnamed sources, Axios reported last week that "the plan largely lays out the Trump administration's aspirations for AI, some of which officials have already stated, including: promoting innovation, reducing regulatory burdens, and overhauling permitting."
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy spokesperson Victoria LaCivita said in an email to Axios that it "will deliver a strong, specific, and actionable federal policy roadmap that goes beyond the details reported here and we look forward to releasing it soon."
According to Monday reporting from Politico, "The AI Action Plan will include cutting back environmental requirements and streamlining permitting policies to make it easier to build data centers and power infrastructure."
Also on Monday, Nextgov/FCW—which obtained documents and spoke with unnamed sources—reported that "Trump plans to sign three AI-focused executive orders in the runup to the release of the administration's sweeping AI Action Plan."
"Each order focuses on one of three aspects of artificial intelligence regulation and policy that the administration has prioritized: spearheading AI-ready infrastructure; establishing and promoting a U.S. technology export regime; and ensuring large language models are not generating 'woke' or otherwise biased information," according to Nextgov/FCW.
Experts will tell you: The growth of AI doesn't have to mean Big Tech + Big Oil write the rules as they have for this White House. It does not have to mean less freedom + equality. Or more pollution + scarcity. Join us in putting people first in AI: peoplesaiaction.com
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— Open Markets Institute (@openmarkets.bsky.social) July 22, 2025 at 11:06 AM
J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate at Public Citizen, stressed on Tuesday that "AI is already harming workers, consumers, and communities—and instead of enforcing guardrails, this administration is gutting oversight."
Branch pointed to a recent vote in the U.S. Senate to remove a controversial provision that would have prevented state-level regulation of AI for a decade from Republicans' budget reconciliation package, which Trump signed on July 4.
"After the AI moratorium was defeated 99-1 under massive public pressure, the message from the public was clear: No more handouts for Trump's tech bro buddies," Branch said. "We need rules and accountability—not a Silicon Valley free-for-all."
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Alarm Bells Ring as Delaware 'Radically' Shifts More Power to Corporate Insiders
"The Delaware lawmakers that enacted S.B. 21 are lapdogs for corporations and Musk," said one expert at the Open Markets Institute.
Mar 26, 2025
While Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer declared that "Delaware is the best place in the world to incorporate your business, and Senate Bill 21 will help keep it that way," critics reiterated concerns about the corporate-friendly state legislation he signed this week.
The Delaware House of Representatives sent the Senate-approved S.B. 21 to Meyer's desk on Tuesday in a 32-7 vote, with two members absent. The Delaware Business Times reported that the governor "arrived in Dover to sign the measure into law less than two hours after it passed," and "the bill signing was closed to the press."
The bill sailed through the Delaware General Assembly despite anti-monopoly, economic, and legal experts blasting it as a "corporate insider power grab" and accusing state legislators of choosing "billionaire insiders—like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg—over pension funds, retirement savers, and other investors."
Delaware Working Families Party (WFP) political director Karl Stomberg said in a Wednesday statement that "at a time when rank-and-file Democrats across the country are begging their leaders to stand up to" President Donald Trump and Musk, his billionaire adviser, Democratic lawmakers in the state "just gave Musk a $56 billion handout."
That's a reference to Musk's 2018 compensation package for his electric vehicle maker, Tesla, which a Delaware judge ruled against, prompting the richest billionaire on Earth to ditch the state and encourage other business leaders to do the same. Fears of a potential "Dexit" led to lawmakers' frantic effort to pass S.B. 21.
"The Working Families Party has been standing up against this proposed bill for weeks now, and we recognize the need to fight back against corporate overreach in our government," said Stomberg. "WFP electeds proposed serious amendments to address our concerns with the bill that would protect the people of Delaware, but the Democrats chose to side with Musk and vote them down."
"This bill is an indictment of the failed Delaware Way, which continues to allow big corporations and the ultrawealthy like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to enrich themselves at the expense of working people," added Stomberg.
Zuckerberg is the CEO of Meta, Facebook and Instagram's parent company. CNBC recently revealed that "a day after The Wall Street Journal published its story on Meta considering a Delaware departure, Meyer, who was brand new to the job, convened an online meeting with attorneys from law firms that have represented Meta, Musk, Tesla, and others in shareholder disputes in the state, according to public records obtained by CNBC. Other attendees included members of the Delaware Legislature."
"The following day, records show, Meyer invited a second group to meet with him and new Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez. That invitation went to Kate Kelly, Meta's corporate secretary, and to Dan Sachs, the company's senior national director of state and local policy," according to CNBC. "The invite also went to James Honaker, an attorney with Morris Nichols, a firm that's represented Meta in federal court in Delaware, and to William Chandler, former chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, who is now part of Wilson Sonsini's Delaware litigation practice."
Just weeks after those meetings, the governor urged state lawmakers to swiftly pass S.B. 21. The Lever's Luke Goldstein wrote Wednesday that "the timing of the emails obtained by CNBC reveals clear motivations driving the current law which was rushed before the Legislature last month by the new governor: to let top executives off the hook for legal liabilities."
In earlier reporting, Goldstein highlighted that "Delaware, which has long been perceived as a billionaire playground and corporate tax haven, is the incorporation home to more than 60% of all Fortune 500 companies. That means, if enacted, the wide-ranging regulatory handouts in the bill will have sweeping consequences for corporate behavior across the country."
The Lever's founder, David Sirota, on Wednesday lamented the limited attention the Delaware law is receiving, compared with a major national security breach involving several top Trump officials' unsecure group chat about war plans. As he put it, "Cannot overstate how significant this is—while the national media is focused on the D.C. drama, a group of Democrats off the radar in a tiny state just radically shifted more power to the planet's largest corporations via world-changing legislation."
Daniel Hanley, senior legal analyst at the Open Markets Institute, said Wednesday that "the Delaware lawmakers that enacted S.B. 21 are lapdogs for corporations and Musk. How this one state came to control practically all of American corporate law is a long story, but regardless, Congress can and should take the power away."
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'Historic' DOJ Antitrust Suit Could Topple Live Nation-Ticketmaster Monopoly
"For far too long, Live Nation-Ticketmaster has acted as the mafia boss of the live events industry—using its power to rip off fans with sky-high prices and junk fees, exploit musicians and artists, and bully workers," an expert said.
May 23, 2024
The U.S. Department of Justice and 30 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit on Thursday against entertainment company Live Nation—and its subsidiary Ticketmaster—calling it an "illegal monopoly," in a move celebrated by public interest groups.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that Live Nation engages in exclusionary conduct, barring competitors from entering the industry or expanding their businesses, which leads to higher ticket prices for concertgoers and a smaller take for performers and small-business owners.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who leads the DOJ, said in a statement that the company "relies on unlawful, anti-competitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live events industry." He said the monopoly is bad for fans, artists, promoters, and venues. "It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster," he said.
Today’s lawsuit by the Justice Department Antitrust Division is an enormous step forward in preventing one company from dictating the ebbs and flows of an entire industry. pic.twitter.com/A2n5NAQJrR
— U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) May 23, 2024
The DOJ's statement cited seven specific tactics that the company has used to eliminate competition:
- Turning Oak View Group, a potential competitor, into a partner;
- Retaliating against potential entrants;
- Threatening and retaliating against venues that work with rivals;
- Locking out competition with exclusionary contracts;
- Blocking venues from using multiple ticketers;
- Restricting artists' access to venues;
- Acquiring competitors and competitive threats.
The 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster allowed the merged firm to gain dominance over the industry by combining venue-operating and ticketing, and it used its dominance to wield power by, for example, threatening to boycott bands unless they used Ticketmaster, according to a Thursday statement from the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP).
"Today is a historic, long-awaited day for fans, artists, and independent businesses in the live events industry—the Department of Justice is officially seeking to break up one of America's most infamous monopolies," said Morgan Harper, AELP's director of policy and advocacy. "For far too long, Live Nation-Ticketmaster has acted as the mafia boss of the live events industry—using its power to rip off fans with sky-high prices and junk fees, exploit musicians and artists, and bully workers and small-business owners in the industry."
The lawsuit comes amid a wave of antitrust action by the Biden administration, led by the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), whose chairperson, Lina Khan, has been a prominent critic of Big Tech and monopolistic practices. The DOJ has investigated UnitedHealth Group, the world's largest health insurance company, and filed suits against Apple and Google, while the FTC has taken on Amazon, among others.
While the antitrust actions have faced pushback, public interest groups have applauded them—and pushed for similar action to be taken in the entertainment industry, as the DOJ did on Thursday. Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director of Open Markets Institute, said in a statement that the new suit could be a "critical blow" for Live Nation, to the benefit of the American public.
"Through a series of acquisitions and coercive tactics, Live Nation has unfairly dominated the promotion, hosting, and ticketing of concerts for years to the great detriment of artists, fans, and independent businesses," Vaheesan said. "Critically, rather than attempt to remedy this monopoly through surgical fixes, the government wisely seeks to terminate Live Nation's control of the industry through a breakup of this behemoth."
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'Seismic Win for Workers': FTC Bans Noncompete Clauses
Advocates praised the FTC "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
Apr 23, 2024
U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
"These agreements are ubiquitous," she noted, applauding the ban. "EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospect detailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
Still, the Democratic commissioners' vote was heralded as a "seismic win for workers." Echoing Khan's critiques of such noncompetes, Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert declared that such clauses "inflict devastating harms on tens of millions of workers across the economy."
"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
"They didn't know that it would affect their wages and livelihood," Reyes stressed. "Most workers cannot negotiate their way out of a noncompete clause because noncompetes are buried in the fine print of employment contracts. A full third of noncompete clauses are presented after a worker has accepted a job."
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, also cheered the effort to stop corporations from holding employees "hostage," saying that "this rule is a critical step for protecting our nation's workers and making labor markets fairer and more competitive."
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FTC-DOJ Merger Guidelines Aim to 'Restore Competition and Strengthen Democracy'
One expert called the guidance "a game-changer for antitrust enforcement, incorporating decades of new learnings and thousands of public comments from working families and small businesses."
Dec 18, 2023
Antitrust campaigners and experts on Monday celebrated the Biden administration's new guidelines for mergers and acquisitions, which supporters say will "restore competition and strengthen democracy."
Farm Action co-founder and chief strategy officer Joe Maxwell commended the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) "for delivering on their commitment to restore competition to our economy."
"For more than 40 years, the merger guidelines have been void of a review for competition," he said. "During this period of time, unprecedented concentration across U.S. markets has driven farmers and small businesses out of business."
"The new guidelines provide a roadmap to bring first principles of the antitrust laws into the 21st century."
Erik Peinert, research manager and editor at the American Economic Liberties Project, declared that "the finalized merger guidelines are a game-changer for antitrust enforcement, incorporating decades of new learnings and thousands of public comments from working families and small businesses."
"After almost 50 years of significant underenforcement, we're thrilled to see the antitrust agencies make a comprehensive update to the merger guidelines, and look forward to seeing them vigorously enforced," he continued. "The new guidelines provide a roadmap to bring first principles of the antitrust laws into the 21st century."
"Previous guidelines ignored or underappreciated the harms from practices like vertical mergers and serial acquisitions, as well as the harms to workers," he highlighted. "A generation of these deals has suppressed worker pay, increased prices, and embrittled our supply chains."
Open Markets Institute legal director Sandeep Vaheesan also praised the agencies behind the new guidelines, which he said "put fealty to law front and center again and seek to implement congressional intent, instead of their own ideological preferences."
"By relying on market share tests for deciding the legality of certain mergers, the new guidelines are more faithful to the Clayton Act than the 2010 horizontal merger guidelines were," Vaheesan explained. "They are also more in accord with empirical research on the effects of mergers and acquisitions, which finds that corporate consolidation can harm democratic balances and institutions, as well as workers, producers, and consumers."
"In our comments on the draft guidelines, we called on the DOJ and the FTC, in the final guidelines, to adopt lower market share tests to cover consolidations outside the most highly concentrated markets and to reject unequivocally an efficiencies defense for presumptively illegal mergers," he noted. "Although the agencies stuck with their original approach in the final document, these guidelines are a material improvement over the status quo and will help the two agencies do a better job of stopping and deterring harmful corporate consolidation going forward."
The guidelines released Monday reflect feedback the agencies received after putting out a draft in July.
FTC Chair Lina Khan expressed gratitude for "the thousands of comments submitted by American workers, consumers, entrepreneurs, farmers, business owners, and other members of the public," stressing that "this input directly informed the guidelines and allowed us to pursue this work with a deeper understanding of the real-life stakes of merger enforcement."
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the guidelines "provide transparency" into Justice Department action and pledged that the DOJ "will continue to vigorously enforce the laws that safeguard competition and protect all Americans."
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Biden Applauded for Fighting 'Billion-Dollar Rip-Off' With Proposed Junk Fees Ban
"It's a bad day for corporate monopolies," said one advocate.
Oct 11, 2023
Consumer advocacy groups on Wednesday applauded new efforts announced by the Biden administration to rein in banks and other companies that make billions of dollars per year charging Americans what President Joe Biden called "outrageous" hidden fees when they make purchases or use basic financial services.
Speaking in the Rose Garden at the White House, Biden said the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed a new rule that would ban businesses from charging "junk fees"—unexpected "service charges" and other fees that are revealed to a consumer just before an online purchase is finalized by ticketing companies, car rental agencies, and other businesses.
Biden said companies charge the fees "simply because they can" and that banning them will give households across the nation more "breathing room."
"These junk fees can add hundreds of dollars weighing down family budgets, making it harder to pay family bills," said the president. "These junk fees may not matter to the wealthy, but they sure matter to working folks in homes like the one I grew up in."
The proposed rule has a 60-day public comment period. If finalized, the FTC would be empowered to impose financial penalties on companies that don't make their products' full prices clear to consumers, and obtain refunds for people who are charged junk fees.
"Today's monopolists and other powerful private corporations are true experts in exploiting their leverage to rip off the American people, with the harm falling especially hard on the poorest, least educated, and least powerful members of our society," said Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute. "Today's announcement demonstrates that President Biden is truly serious about banning these outrageous and abusive tactics and forcing corporations to just tell the truth about their services and prices."
While many in the American public may have come to accept junk fees as a part of life, Faiz Shakir, interim executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, said the charges—which companies have increasingly used over the past 30 years—"aren't just a nuisance; they're a billion-dollar rip-off squeezing nearly every American's wallet."
"With a new proposed rule today from the FTC to flat out ban junk fees across the economy," said Shakir, "the Biden-Harris administration is standing up for working families. From banking to credit cards, hotels to airlines, and healthcare to entertainment, big corporations all across the economy abuse their market power to nickel and dime working families and undermine fair competition."
The president also announced that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will require large banks and credit unions to provide basic services to consumers, such as account balances and information needed for applications, without charging fees.
"These fees are now illegal," said Biden.
The CFPB has taken numerous actions since Biden took office to protect consumers from unfair fees, and announced Wednesday that its work has brought bounced check fees down more than 86% since 2021, saving Americans—particularly low-income families—nearly $2 billion.
The bureau also said it has secured $140 million in refunds for people who were charged types of junk fees that are already illegal, such as surprise overdraft charges and multiple bounced check fees for one transaction.
With Wednesday's announcement, "once again, the Biden administration has stepped up for consumers," said Susan Harley, managing director of the Congress Watch division of consumer watchdog Public Citizen.
"Ending junk fees," she added, "will allow Americans to make better informed decisions about how to spend their hard-earned money."
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FTC Hits Amazon With 'One of the Most Important Antitrust Cases in US History'
"Breaking up Amazon is key to repairing the online market and opening the way for competition," said one expert.
Sep 26, 2023
Economic justice advocates applauded on Tuesday as the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Seattle-based Amazon.com for illegally dominating the online retail economy at the expense of consumers.
"Freedom of commerce is a fundamental liberty of American democracy," declared Open Markets Institute executive director Barry Lynn in response to the suit. "Today the FTC took a first step to restoring the liberty of every individual and business who relies on essential internet platforms to exchange goods, services, and ideas with one another."
Lynn praised the commission for "targeting some of the most egregious abuses by Amazon of the dominant position it has acquired over vast swaths of online commerce, and the corporation's routinized manipulation of other people's business for its own private purposes."
"Seldom in the history of U.S. antitrust law has one case had the potential to do so much good for so many people."
The 172-page complaint "lays out how Amazon has used a set of punitive and coercive tactics to unlawfully maintain its monopolies," said FTC Chair Lina Khan in a statement. "The complaint sets forth detailed allegations noting how Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them."
The document—filed in a federal court in Washington state—alleges that Amazon maintains "durable monopoly power" in the online superstore and marketplace services markets, including by stifling price competition and coercing sellers into using its fulfillment service. The section on its algorithmic tool "Project Nessie" is heavily redacted.
"Seldom in the history of U.S. antitrust law has one case had the potential to do so much good for so many people," noted John Newman, deputy director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition. States led by both Democrats and Republicans—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin—joined the highly anticipated lawsuit.
Amazon—which was founded by Jeff Bezos, one of the richest people on the planet, and is now the second-largest private employer in the United States—swiftly pushed back on Tuesday.
David Zapolsky, the company's senior vice president of global public policy and general counsel, claimed the FTC case "is wrong on the facts and the law." He said the challenged practices "have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry, and have produced greater selection, lower prices, and faster delivery speeds for Amazon customers and greater opportunity for the many businesses that sell in Amazon's store."
Meanwhile, critics of the company joined Open Markets in celebrating the development—echoing praise for FTC in June, when the commission sued Amazon over its "yearslong effort to enroll consumers into its Prime program without their consent while knowingly making it difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions."
Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, said Tuesday that "the FTC is right to challenge Amazon, a company that appears to offer low prices under the guise of free shipping but in fact inflates prices across the whole economy."
"In order to reach most online customers, sellers must sell through Amazon. This market power enables Amazon to set the price floor on almost every online retail item offered by sellers, extract a 50% cut from each sale, and punish sellers who try to sell elsewhere at lower prices," he explained. "At the same time, it leverages its dominance to block rivals from entering the markets in which it offers services, while its own marketplace is increasingly saturated with pay-to-play junk ads."
"There's no such thing as 'free shipping' just as there's no such thing as a free lunch, Amazon is just hiding from consumers how much they have to pay," Stoller stressed. "Amazon is a monopoly, and we're thrilled to see the FTC end its coercive tactics."
Stacy Mitchell, co-director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance—which has spent over a decade sounding the alarm about the retail giant's practices—charged that "for too long Amazon has been allowed to maintain a stranglehold on the online market."
"The filing of this lawsuit is a victory for freedom and self-governance; it marks a crucial rekindling of public authority to check unaccountable private power," said Mitchell. "This is one of the most important antitrust cases in U.S. history."
"Breaking up Amazon is key to repairing the online market and opening the way for competition," she argued. "As this lawsuit shows, Amazon's anti-competitive tactics largely hinge on leveraging the interplay between its retail division, third-party marketplace, and logistics operation. Separating them would eliminate Amazon's ability to monopolize the market. We are encouraged that both the scope of this case and the FTC's request for the court to consider structural remedies show that the agency intends to tackle Amazon's monopoly power at its root."
Demand Progress communications director Maria Langholz called the case "long overdue," given the company's record of "shamelessly engaging in exclusionary and unfair tactics to trap third-party sellers in its own marketplaces, gouge them with predatory fees, and punish them for trying to offer lower prices to consumers."
"This marks a historic step in challenging Amazon's abuse of its market dominance and its anti-consumer, anti-worker, anti-small business practices," Langholz said. Like Mitchell, she also suggested that the suit should be "a catalyst for a broader conversation about the need to break up Amazon as the best and most effective remedy."
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