The struggle over antitrust policy goes ever on.
A majority of the Federal Trade Commission Commissioners today disagreed with a report by the Department of Justice on misbehavior by firms in their acquisition and wielding of monopoly power. The FTC and its Competition Bureau share responsibility for enforcement of federal antitrust law with the DOJ’s Antitrust Division.
According to the Commissioners’ statement, the recommendations in Competition and Monopoly: Single-Firm Conduct Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act furnish "a blueprint for radically weakened enforcement of Section 2 of the Sherman Act."
Blawgletter hasn’t studied the report (in all its 215-page glory) and so can’t comment on who has the better side of the argument. But our eye did wander to an eight-page appendix listing the testifiers and opiners who contributed to the effort. We counted a Great Many government lawyers, Quite a Few academics, a Dozen or So private-practice economists, a Slew of defense firm lawyers, plus a Big Gob of corporate general counsel folks (including that paragon of antitrust enforcement, Intel).
We saw one lawyer who tends to represent plaintiffs in antitrust lawsuits. One. Not to mention zero consumer advocate types.
