Via Chris Hayes, we have top Department of Justice official Christine Varney's big anti-trust announcement:
President Obama's top antitrust official this week plans to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share.
... She will assert instead that severe recessions can provide dangerous incentives for large and dominating companies to engage in predatory behavior that harms consumers and weakens competition. The announcement is aimed at making sure that no court or party to a lawsuit can cite the Bush administration policy as the government's official view in any pending cases.
... Ms. Varney is expected to explicitly warn judges and litigants in antitrust lawsuits not involving the government to ignore the Bush administration’s policies, which were formally outlined in a report by the Justice Department last year. The report applied legal standards that made it difficult to bring new cases involving monopoly and predatory practices.
As a result of the Bush administration's interpretation of antitrust laws, the enforcement pipeline for major monopoly cases — which can take years for prosecutors to develop — is thin. During the Bush administration, the Justice Department did not file a single case against a dominant firm for violating the antimonopoly law.
It's funny to remember today, as Obama comes under fire for policies that are seen as handouts to big business, that the Bush administration's codling of business was so controversial their anti-trust policies were opposed by three of the four members of the Federal Trade Commission.
The current president's decision to learn from history, particularly the Great Depression, and not allow large business to take advantage of the recession, is exactly the opposite tack. Specifically, anti-trust practices can be useful in cutting down on predatory behavior by corporations; monopolistic firms have a tendency to set competitive standards that lead to fraudulent behavior across industries. I'm very excited to see what ambitious U.S. attorneys can do with these new guidelines; though the Times article focuses on the tech sector, progressives following the issue would be happy to see a leaner, less corrupt financial industry as well. *Cough* Lev Dassin *cough*.
-- Tim Fernholz
