Klobuchar presents a comprehensive antitrust bill, setting out his vision as the new chair of the subcommittee

Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., On Thursday unveiled a comprehensive antitrust reform bill, which gave a harsh tone to her new role as chair of the Senate antitrust judicial subcommittee.

Klobuchar has often criticized what she and other lawmakers have seen as a lax application of existing antitrust laws and has called for strong action against some of the major technology companies. Although in the past it has introduced several bills seeking reforms to various aspects of antitrust law, the “Competition Reform Act and Antitrust Law” is a comprehensive proposal that calls for a major overhaul of compliance rules. . If enacted, it would pose a significantly greater risk for companies like Facebook and Google, which are already facing federal lawsuits, and for any dominant company that wants to acquire another company.

With this bill, Klobuchar draws his line in the sand of antitrust reform, indicating that he will use his place to call for major changes to the status quo. Broadly speaking, the bill seeks to reform the antitrust law in three main ways: 1) re-establish the rule to enforce and shift the burden of proof to dominant companies in merger cases; 2) require agencies to study markets and the effects of the merger regularly, with the help of additional funds; and 3) give new tools to antitrust executors, such as imposing civil sanctions.

In the House, the chairman of the antitrust subcommittee, David Cicilline, DR.I., has similarly called for extensive reforms to be carried out throughout an investigation into Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. This research culminated last year with a nearly 450-page report on the alleged monopoly power of companies and suggested reforms to restore competition in the digital market.

While Republicans on the House subcommittee did not fully agree with the Democrats’ far-reaching proposals, they saw mostly market problems and the need for some reform. This could give some hope that Klobuchar’s proposals will be approved, at least in part.

The Klobuchar bill would seek to strengthen antitrust law enforcement in the following ways, among others:

• Raise the bar for dominant companies that want to merge with other companies, including moving the burden of proof to the merging parties.
• Add a ban on “exclusionary conduct” to the Clayton Act, which regulates mergers, to make it more difficult for dominant companies to demonstrate that their mergers will not harm competition if they participate in such acts. Exclusionary conduct would include acts that disadvantage current or potential competitors or limit the ability or incentives of rivals to compete.
• Authorize $ 300 million increases in the annual budgets of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforce antitrust laws.
• Allow antitrust authorities to seek civil sanctions for violations of the monopoly law and for the violation of exclusionary conduct created by the bill, in addition to other remedies they may already seek, such as breaches and court action.
• Creation of an independent competition attorney’s office within the FTC that can conduct market analysis to report on its application and help raise consumer complaints.
• Require merged companies to update agencies on the results of their bids and for agencies to study the impacts of previous mergers.
• Extend whistleblower incentives to those who mark possible civil offenses.

Klobuchar has blamed failed court decisions to weaken the meaning of existing antitrust laws, an opinion shared by members of both parties, including former President Donald Trump’s antitrust chief in the DOJ. His bill seeks to restore standards to determine the existence of a violation that will give government authorities and private whistleblowers more chances to fight dominant companies.

This could come in handy as agencies prepare to tackle some of the largest, most stocked companies in the world. Federal agencies and state executors are already in the process of suing Facebook and Google, which will take years to resolve if they go to trial. And those responsible for the application have also looked at both Amazon and Apple, as reported by several outlets. All companies have refused to engage in anti-competitive conduct.

In the meantime, these companies would probably not be surprised if they received an invitation to testify before the Klobuchar subcommittee this year.

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SEE: How U.S. antitrust law works and what it means for Big Tech