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Attorney General William Barr has tightened his control of the Justice Department’s antitrust probes over the last several months, a move that could spell trouble for Google, Facebook, and other Silicon Valley tech giants. The attorney general, along with his deputy attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, and several other officials, have personally taken over the antitrust probes, Politico reported Monday. The move makes good on a promise Barr made during his confirmation hearing, when he vowed antitrust issues would be a priority for him. “I think a lot of people wonder how such huge behemoths that now exist in Silicon Valley...

Palo Alto, CA  ~  Wednesday, February 12, 2020 “Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)”*: The Role of Venture Capital in a Competitive EconomyRemarks as Prepared for Delivery Good morning.  On behalf of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the Rock Center for Corporate Governance, I want to welcome you to Paul Brest Hall and Stanford University.  I am Makan Delrahim, and I have the privilege of serving as the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the Department of Justice.Today’s event is part of our on-going effort at the Department of Justice to understand the...

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard A. Powers Delivers Remarks on the State of Criminal Antitrust Enforcement in 2020 Miami, FL  ~  Friday, February 7, 2020 Remarks as Prepared for DeliveryGood morning. It’s great to be in Miami and among so many leaders in the antitrust community. I’d like to thank Margaret [Sanderson] and Jason [Gudofsky] for hosting this event and the opportunity to be here and provide an update on criminal antitrust enforcement.Whenever we prepare an update on our program, it is a great opportunity for us to step back and think about our mission and consider how what we...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, February 5, 2020 A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Alan Gaines, a Missouri resident, with participating in a conspiracy to rig bids submitted to the General Services Administration (GSA) at online auctions for surplus government equipment, the Department of Justice announced.According to the indictment filed in the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Gaines conspired to rig bids at public online GSA auctions of surplus government equipment from about July 2012 until as late as May 2018.  Gaines is the third individual charged in this investigation.  Two...

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, February 4, 2020 A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania returned an indictment against a former senior executive for his role in conspiracies to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate customers for generic drugs, and for making a false statement to federal agents who were investigating those conspiracies, the Department of Justice announced today.The three-count indictment, filed today in Philadelphia, charges Ara Aprahamian, a former top executive at a generic pharmaceutical company, with participating in two conspiracies to fix prices,...

The Trump administration is considering suing Facebook for antitrust violations over the way the tech company's multiple platforms interact........Facebook controls a variety of apps including Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. The Federal Trade Commission is considering suing the tech giant over how its apps integrate and work with competitors An antitrust lawsuit against Facebook may signal more aggressive moves by the Trump administration into other big tech companies, as well. Google and Amazon may also become subjects of FTC lawsuits and investigations. The Department of Justice is investigating online platforms for allegedly abusing consumers' data and potentially blocking competitors' access to...

About 40 state attorneys general will participate in an antitrust investigation of Facebook led by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing three people familiar with the matter. In September, James had announced an investigation with seven other states and the District of Columbia into whether the social media giant has “endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, or increased the price of advertising.” The three people who spoke to the Post said the larger inquiry is still confidential, and that New York could enlist further states before the probe is...

A U.S. congressional committee has requested a trove of internal Facebook documents that the company’s critics say will demonstrate how the social media giant unfairly leveraged its market dominance to crush or absorb competitors. The request by the House Judiciary Committee comes amid a flurry of new antitrust investigations of technology giants, including ones by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general. At issue here is a cache of internal Facebook documents unearthed in a case brought by Six4Three, a defunct startup whose founders have waged a bitter four-year legal battle with the social network. In a nine-page Sept....

Texas will lead a joint state investigation into Google over antitrust concerns, state Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday. The news follows the announcement of a joint state Facebook probe led by the attorney general of New York. Google is also reportedly facing an antitrust probe from the U.S. Department of Justice... The bipartisan probe includes attorneys general from 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. California and Alabama are not involved in the probe... Antitrust, compared to privacy and consumer protection concerns, poses a more direct threat to these companies’ business models. If the federal or state...

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes reportedly met with the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and multiple state attorneys general in recent weeks to discuss breaking up Facebook. Hughes and two prominent antitrust academics, Scott Hemphill and Tim Wu, met with federal and state officials and have laid out a possible antitrust case against the social media giant, The New York Times reported Thursday. The group argues that Facebook has made “serial defensive acquisitions” to maintain its control over the market and allow the company to hike up advertising prices while also lowering the quality of the user experience,...

Last week, at the invitation of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, I spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Google’s having placed more than 60 Prager University videos on its restricted list. ast week, at the invitation of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, I spoke to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Google’s having placed more than 60 Prager University videos on its restricted list. Any family that filters out pornography and violence cannot see those particular videos on YouTube (which is owned by Google); nor can any school or library. This statement is as much about what I and PragerU stand for...

Realogy stock surged more than 25% in Tuesday’s premarket after it announced a deal with Amazon. The largest residential real estate brokerage company in the nation is partnering with the largest online retailer in the world in a strategy designed to boost sales for both. Realogy and Amazon will now offer TurnKey, a program that takes potential homebuyers through the Amazon portal and connects them to a Realogy agent. Once they purchase a home, they then get complimentary Amazon Home Services and products worth up to $5,000. Realogy, which owns such brands as Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby’s International Realty,...

When Google needed government sign-off on a 2007 acquisition that would tighten its grip on the digital advertising market, the company turned to antitrust attorney and lobbyist Makan Delrahim to help get the job done. Now, as the Justice Department’s top antitrust enforcer, Delrahim could be the one to undo it all.

Conservatives have learned never to underestimate the anti-capitalist, anti-corporate paranoia of Democrats and liberals. Of course, there is some irony in this, given the incestuous relationship that exists between the Democratic Party and countless major corporations. Recognition for the ironic, however, has never been the left's strong suit. How else can you explain a movement that colludes with Russians to “steal” an election, and then accuses its opponents of the very same thing?Recently, the anti-corporate bias of liberals has taken yet another strange turn. Some are seeking to block the merger of two printing companies, Quad/Graphics and LSC Communications, on...

I’ll start with a personal experience and then try to expand into Republicans and big tech. In the spring of 2016, Facebook came under pressure, stemming from leaks by its workers, over charges of systemic political bias. I was not especially interested: a Silicon Valley company that employs thousands of young people to make decisions that are often ideological will tilt left, and conservatives must factor that in, as they’re used to doing. My concerns about Facebook had to do with its apparently monopolistic nature, slippery ethics and algorithmic threats to serious journalism. Soon after, I received an email from...

This video shows the Top 10 companies by market capitalization worldwide from 1998 to 2018. It includes American companies such as, Apple, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Walmart, General Electric, Amazon, as well as companies from other countries, such as Tencent, BP, Alibaba, Royal Dutch Shell, etc.

May 31, 2019 8:26 p.m. ET Breaking News : *Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google, Sources Say *Justice Department Antitrust Investigation Expected to Examine Google Practices Related to Search and Other Businesses, Sources Say *Federal Trade Commission Investigated Google Several Years Ago, Will Defer to Justice Department This Time, Sources Say (More to come)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the United States has won the first round of litigation against Qualcomm. Judge Lucy H. Koh of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has just found that the San Diego-based chipset maker violated the FTC Act, and has ordered the following remedies: (1) Qualcomm must not condition the supply of modem chips on a customer’s patent license status and Qualcomm must negotiate or renegotiate license terms with customers in good faith under conditions free from the threat of lack of access to or discriminatory provision of modem chip supply...

The media landscape used to be straightforward: Content companies — studios — made stuff — TV shows and movies — and sold it to pay TV distributors, who sold it to consumers. Now things are up for grabs: Netflix buys stuff from the studios, but it’s making its own stuff, too, and it’s selling it directly to consumers. That’s one of the reasons older media companies are trying to compete by consolidating. Disney, for example, recently completed its purchase of 21st Century Fox. Distributors like AT&T, which bought Time Warner last year, are becoming media companies, too. Meanwhile, giant tech...

We all know all about Windows 10’s most controversial feature, and Microsoft has now confirmed it has struck again… Picked up by the ever-excellent AskWoody, the latest update for Windows 10 (patch KB4482887) has crippled gaming performance on the platform across both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Microsoft has now confirmed the problem and issued an official warning about the update. “After installing KB4482887, users may notice graphics and mouse performance degradation with desktop gaming when playing certain games (eg: Destiny 2),” explained Microsoft, with the company saying it is working on a fix. Needless to say, users are furious. Woody...