Posted on 05/11/2009 5:51:55 AM PDT by reaganaut1
President Obama’s top antitrust official this week plans to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share.
The new enforcement policy would reverse the Bush administration’s approach, which strongly favored defendants against antitrust claims. It would restore a policy that led to the landmark antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft and Intel in the 1990s.
The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Christine A. Varney, is to announce the policy reversal in a speech she will give on Monday before the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy research organization. She will deliver the same speech on Tuesday to the United States Chamber of Commerce.
The speeches were described by people who have consulted with her about the policy shift. The administration is hoping to encourage smaller companies in an array of industries to bring their complaints to the Justice Department about potentially improper business practices by their larger rivals. Some of the biggest antitrust cases were initiated by complaints taken to the Justice Department.
Ms. Varney is expected to say that the administration rejects the impulse to go easy on antitrust enforcement during weak economic times.
She will assert instead that severe recessions can provide dangerous incentives for large and dominating companies to engage in predatory behavior that harms consumers and weakens competition. The announcement is aimed at making sure that no court or party to a lawsuit can cite the Bush administration policy as the government’s official view in any pending cases.
In the speeches, Ms. Varney is expected to explicitly warn judges and litigants in antitrust lawsuits not involving the government to ignore the Bush administration’s policies, which were formally outlined in a report by the Justice Department last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What about government monopoly schools, or union monopolies in workplaces not in right-to-work states?
Wow whatta surprise???
They don't like the competition to the monopolies they are creating with bailouts, takeovers, unionism and regulation.
..shuuush don't mention the obvious, it's like saying the government is the ONLY organization that achieves enormous windfall profits
But the Obama administration has identified a few big companies that are not YET on the verge of bankruptcy. But don't worry -- he's got a plan to deal with them.
And the Kenyon clown sues Walmart in 3 2 1.....
Outside of government, including favored regulation, can you name a single company that has a sustained market dominance over time that hurt the public?
The government doesn't have to worry about us small businesses being put out of business by our larger competitors. Government is doing its best to destroy us all by itself.
This is about minorty ownership percentage. They want more pie.
Something tells me the law won’t apply to Big Brother or democrat party donors.
“Outside of government, including favored regulation, can you name a single company that has a sustained market dominance over time that hurt the public?”
Ah....My gut tells me this is about Ford....the last American car comapany...
I was wondering how they would go after Ford for holding out from Obama’s wishes....
This would be how.....they are “unfairly” taking market share from GM and chrysler....
This will also be how they get independant power/oil/health care companies to knuckle under...
Its another shakedown. Companies will be harassed unless they pay off the dims.
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