WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden government is expected to expand antitrust cases against Alphabet’s Google and Facebook and encourage companies to break up, according to a group whose founder is working with the president-elect’s transition team.
The American Economic Liberties Project, an influential Washington-based anti-monopoly group, published a report with guidelines for competition officials in the next government. The group is led by Sarah Miller, who is working with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team and has been instrumental in making antitrust enforcement against Big Tech a prevalent issue.
The report’s recommendations offer a glimpse of thinking that could influence future policy making under the Biden government.
The group asked the United States Department of Justice to make it clear that it will continue antitrust lawsuits against Google, expanding the scope of the litigation beyond the search for maps, travel and its app store.
The Justice Department sued Google on October 20, accusing the $ 1 trillion company of dominating search and advertising. In December, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Facebook saying the company used a “buy or bury” strategy to hurt rivals.
The report calls on the Biden government to appoint aggressive Department of Justice and FTC antitrust agents and urges Biden’s appointed attorney general, Merrick Garland, to “publicly commit to the pursuit of a Google dissolution”.
“The antimonopoly movement is very young … We wanted to present a vision that people in a new government could come together and use as a clear roadmap not only for what is possible, but also for what is necessary,” Miller told Reuters.
Proponents of this view want antitrust enforcement to move away from the prevailing standard, which only assesses whether consumers are benefiting from lower prices.
The report encourages antitrust agencies to challenge mergers involving a powerful buyer and urges regulators to stop entering into agreements with companies that do not require them to admit wrongdoing.
Among other recommendations, it intends to eliminate non-competition clauses in labor agreements and end conflicts of interest, preventing companies from operating and competing on the same platform. For example, Amazon.com Inc operates a third-party market focused on the seller, where it also competes.
The report also urges the FTC to prioritize filing an antitrust case against Amazon for harming competitors.
Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman