Lina Khan, an antitrust expert, a Columbia law professor and a thorn in Big Tech, is gaining traction as a candidate to fill one of the roles of commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission under President Joe Biden, Recode told three sources familiar with the discussions this week.
Khan would probably take the place of commissioner currently held by Rohit Chopra, a Democrat that Biden chose to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Chopra has defended Khan’s appointment, the sources said, with a person familiar with the deliberations calling him the current “vanguard”. Khan served as a lawyer at the FTC at Chopra’s office in 2018 and at the CFPB as a summer associate while Chopra worked there.
Khan and Chopra did not respond to messages asking for comment. A White House spokesman declined to comment. The Capitol Forum first reported on Khan’s pull.
The FTC plays a key role in investigating companies’ business practices to preserve competition, enforce federal antitrust laws and to prevent consumer harm. The agency also reviews major acquisitions and mergers of companies in an attempt to preserve industry competition, and can sue companies and impose penalties for violating federal laws. For example, the FTC last year sued separately the companies that own the Gillette and Schick shaving brands, respectively, to prevent them from acquiring or merging with emerging rivals.
The FTC is led by five commissioners, but Biden has two roles to play, with the departure of Chopra and current Republican FTC president Joe Simons, who recently announced his resignation. When these two seats are filled, Democrats will have a 3-2 majority at the top of the committee and you can decide to take legal action or agree to agreements with companies that allegedly violated antitrust laws.
If Khan is nominated and then confirmed by the Senate, it will be a blow to the Big Four technology companies – Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple – that have tried to prevent the government from controlling its unparalleled economic and social power. Khan played a crucial role as a legal advisor to the House antitrust subcommittee’s 16-month investigation into the Big Tech giants and in producing the 400-page House Democrat report that alleged that all tech giants engage in anti-competitive practices. and need to be restrained.
Khan entered the scene in antitrust circles in 2017, when he wrote a legal article dubbed “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox”, which spread widely among supporters and critics. He emphasized the need to step up antitrust enforcement and argued that current antitrust doctrine is not suitable for controlling Internet giants like Amazon. In recent decades, those responsible for antitrust enforcement in the United States have largely favored commercial practices that keep consumer prices low; companies like Amazon, with their low prices, or Google and Facebook with their “free” services, until recently avoided much scrutiny.
Google is already facing three antitrust lawsuits filed last year by the Department of Justice and attorney generals in dozens of states. And the FTC and other state attorney generals have filed antitrust lawsuits against Facebook that ask the company to undo its acquisitions on Instagram and WhatsApp. Recode previously reported that the Federal Trade Commission also continues to investigate several Amazon business practices to determine whether Jeff Bezos’ corporation is violating antitrust laws.
While the world view of an FTC commissioner alone does not directly lead to the commission’s action against technology giants that it otherwise would not, Khan’s appointment may signal that the Biden government is ready to take a tougher stance against Big Tech than the Obama administration was. Progressives in favor of increasing Big Tech regulation are concerned about reports that Biden is considering two employees – who previously advised tech giants – for the antitrust role in the Justice Department, which could also sue companies for violating laws antitrust.
It remains to be seen whether Biden’s antitrust appointments in the DOJ and FTC will end up being a patchwork of employees with varying views of how big a problem of corporate consolidation in technology and beyond is, or whether they will be aligned in the belief that power and the commercial practices of these giants are also a threat to the economy and consumers. In any case, it is difficult to think of an appointment that would concern technology conglomerates more than Khan’s, both because of their experience in examining their practices and because of the huge role that their writings and lawyers have already played in influencing the view of lawmakers. about the threat. Technology poses.