Experts say Donald Trump is likely to undo some of the antitrust policies pursued during President Joe Biden’s administration, which could include trying to break up Alphabet’s Google to address its dominance of online search.
Trump is expected to continue filing lawsuits against big tech companies, several of which were started during his first term, but his recent skepticism about a potential breakup of Google underscores his power over how those cases are heard.
“If you do that, are you going to destroy this company? What you can do without dismantling it is make sure it’s more equitable,” he said at an event in Chicago in October.
The U.S. Department of Justice is currently pursuing two antitrust cases against Google — one against search, another against ad tech, and one against Apple. The US Federal Trade Commission is suing Meta Platforms and Amazon.com.
The U.S. Department of Justice has proposed a series of possible remedies in response to the search case, including letting Google spin off some businesses such as the Chrome web browser and terminating an agreement to make it the default search engine on devices such as Apple’s iPhone.
But a trial on the fixes won’t take place until April 2025, with a final ruling likely in August. William Kovacic, a law professor at George Washington University, said that gives Trump and the Justice Department time to change their approach if they choose to.
“He certainly has the ability to control the Justice Department’s disposition of the remediation phase,” said Kovacic, then the FTC chairman under President George W. Bush.
Trump may also roll back some policies that have angered dealmakers in the Biden administration, lawyers said. One is the reluctance to reach settlements with merging companies, which was common in the past and allowed companies to take actions such as selling off parts of their businesses to resolve competition concerns raised by agencies about the transactions.
Jon Dubrow, a partner at the law firm McDermott Will & Emery, said the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department may rescind merger review guidance established under Biden.
“The 2023 Merger Code is very bad for mergers and acquisitions,” he said, echoing a widely held view on Wall Street.
The FTC’s ban on most non-compete clauses in employer-employee contracts could become more vulnerable to a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce if the FTC votes not to defend it.
According to the FTC, approximately 30 million people, or 20% of U.S. workers, have signed non-compete agreements. The agency is currently appealing a court ruling that blocked the rule.
But such a move to undo FTC Chair Lena Khan’s job would depend on whether Trump’s appointed successor can be confirmed, giving Republicans a majority on the five-member, bipartisan commission.
Ms. Khan’s initiative focuses on what she sees as the social harm caused by uncontrolled corporate mergers and has drawn praise from Democrats and some Republicans, including Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. But some in the business and legal communities criticized her approach as too radical.
However, Trump is not expected to significantly reduce antitrust enforcement. The number of merger cases filed during Biden’s first term is similar to the first two years of the Biden administration, according to an analysis by law firm Shepard Mullin.
Published – November 6, 2024 07:24 PM (US Standard Time)
