Washington To Deliver Antitrust Punch Against Big Tech

U.S. Attorney General William Barr and Representative David Cicilline are far from ideological soulmates. But in a one-two punch, they’re about to take on the country’s biggest technology platforms and could drive the most significant changes to antitrust law enforcement in decades, reports Bloomberg.

Barr, one of President Donald Trump’s most loyal cabinet members, is poised to file a monopoly-abuse lawsuit as soon as this week against Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, is preparing legislation based on last week’s report alleging wide-ranging antitrust violations by Google, Facebook Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

While the Justice Department case, which is expected to focus on Google’s monopoly over internet search, could take years to resolve, Cicilline’s legislation could have immediate effect if passed -- and could be far more consequential for the tech industry as a whole.

Rep. David Cicilline

This is true even if Cicilline’s most dramatic proposal -- to break up the companies -- stalls because of Republican opposition, antitrust experts said.

After the 449-page report’s release, Cicilline said he intends to offer legislation by the end of the year. That won’t leave enough time for Congress to act, but Cicilline said he intends it as a way to “educate our colleagues about the challenges ahead” and plans to offer more proposals in 2021. Several House Republicans said the report contained proposals they could endorse. And Cicilline said he thought a potential Biden administration would be “very receptive.”

Measures proposed by Cicilline could arm competition cops with new powers and weaken legal barriers that many say have tilted the playing field too much in favor of big companies.

A Cicilline bill could have its most profound effect on mergers and acquisitions. The House Democrat is expected to take aim at the heart of antitrust thinking for the last 40 years -- the so-called consumer-welfare standard that says short-term consumer price effects should be the focus of merger evaluations and monopoly investigations.

The report calls on Congress to clarify that antitrust laws are designed not just to protect consumers, but also “workers, entrepreneurs, independent businesses, open markets, a fair economy, and democratic ideals.”