The Biden administration promised to revitalize antitrust by appointing FTC and DOJ leadership that would reverse the antitrust policies of the previous four decades. Those policies had their birth in the Reagan administration, and while initially controversial, were adopted and adapted by later agency leadership, and in time became the bipartisan antitrust consensus that President Biden called a “failed experiment.” President Biden made three high profile antitrust appointments: Jonathan Kanter, an experienced practitioner to lead the Antitrust Division, Tim Wu, a Columbia Law School professor, to serve as a special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy, and Lina Khan, also a Columbia Law school professor, to lead the Commission. We are now over three years into the Biden administration and it is appropriate to ask whether the Biden administration has succeeded in its efforts to initiate change at the antitrust agencies and antitrust policy? I talk with Tim Muris, a former FTC Chairman, and Howard Beales, a former Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, and get their views. Links Timothy Muris profile (https://tinyurl.com/37ac3h5n) Howard Beales profile (https://tinyurl.com/4specpx2) Achieving Change at the Federal Trade Commission (https://tinyurl.com/a2zjdva6)
The Biden administration promised to revitalize antitrust by appointing FTC and DOJ leadership that would reverse the antitrust policies of the previous four decades. Those policies had their birth in the Reagan administration, and while initially controversial, were adopted and adapted by later agency leadership, and in time became the bipartisan antitrust consensus that President Biden called a “failed experiment.”
President Biden made three high profile antitrust appointments: Jonathan Kanter, an experienced practitioner to lead the Antitrust Division, Tim Wu, a Columbia Law School professor, to serve as a special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy, and Lina Khan, also a Columbia Law school professor, to lead the Commission. We are now over three years into the Biden administration, and it is appropriate to ask whether the Biden administration has succeeded in its efforts to initiate change at the antitrust agencies and antitrust policy?
I talk with Tim Muris, a former FTC Chairman, and Howard Beales, a former Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, and get their views.
Links