Top antitrust officials in Joe Biden’s administration are aiming to deal as many blows as possible to the tech industry before they leave office under Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal writes. The reign of the current president was marked by active law enforcement against tech giants.
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The most ambitious actions are expected to be taken by the Ministry of Justice, which convinced the court that Google had established a monopoly in the field of web search. Tomorrow the department plans to file a proposal with the court to make structural changes to Google’s business. If the company does not restrict the mechanisms that link its mobile products with its own search engine, Google will have to sell the Chrome browser or the Android mobile platform. It would also have to stop paying billions in annual payments to Apple and other partners to set Google as the default search engine in browsers. The company itself says that separating Chrome or Android would harm these free products.
The antitrust division of the Ministry of Justice also intends to challenge the takeover of network equipment manufacturer Juniper Networks by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for $14 billion. Last week, officials held a meeting with the heads of both companies, at which they outlined the authorities’ concerns. Such meetings are traditionally perceived as the last chance to avoid litigation. The final decision has not yet been made. HPE and Juniper described the upcoming deal as pro-competitive and said they intend to obtain the necessary permits. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which oversees antitrust along with the Justice Department, is now laying the groundwork for an investigation into Microsoft’s cloud division. Officials are interested in whether the corporation is creating obstacles for clients to switch to other service providers.
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During Biden’s presidency, FTC Chairman Lina Khan and the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust department, Jonathan Kanter, developed active activities. They led a pilot project to ensure strict compliance by major market players. The two have approached the country’s leadership with a proposal to tighten enforcement, begin to block mergers and stop what they consider abuse of monopoly power by the country’s largest companies. It is not yet clear how the policies of the two departments will change with the return of Donald Trump to the White House, but it is noted that abuses of market power are not justified in both major US parties.
Before leaving, Khan intends to present a report in which she will reveal what advantages tech giants like Microsoft receive in exchange for investing in startups in the field of artificial intelligence. The FTC, concerned that Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon could quickly establish dominance in the field of AI, required them to report on investments in specialized startups OpenAI and Anthropic aimed at creating human-level AI. If the FTC decided to sue only Amazon, accusing it of monopolizing the e-commerce market, the Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit against Google for the second time – now for monopolizing the digital advertising market. The department also filed lawsuits against Apple, Live Nation (owner of the Ticketmaster ticket sales service) and Visa.
However, the two departments also had major failures. The FTC was unable to convince the courts to reject Microsoft’s takeover of Activision Blizzard and Meta✴’s purchase of virtual reality app developer Within Unlimited. The Justice Department lost a case involving a major takeover in the healthcare sector, but made progress in cases involving airlines and publishing. The most difficult cases, as a rule, did not involve direct competitors. The FTC is now awaiting a court decision on the merger of two supermarket chains, and the court is expected to side with the agency. Wall Street analysts expect the Trump administration to be less hostile to mergers and acquisitions. However, this may depend on the industry: for example, oil and investment companies are expecting relief.