Free Republic

The world is returning to the 1970s on most economic policies, so why not antitrust too? Judging by events this week, antitrust enforcement in the U.S. and Europe is in for a major comeback, whether or not consumers benefit. Yesterday in Brussels, the European Commission imposed a record antitrust fine of $1.45 billion on Intel for the heinous crime of discounting computer chips in its fierce and long-running competition with AMD. Meanwhile on Monday, President Obama's new antitrust chief, Christine Varney, issued a radical revision of the Department of Justice's own antitrust enforcement standards. Ms. Varney's ambition seems to be...

Obama Going After Big Companies That Improperly Dominate Markets Justice Department Plans New Antitrust Effort Monday, May 11, 2009 By Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Washington (AP) - SNIPPET: "Varney laid out the new policy in a speech to the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank."

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,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lanny Breuer, pitcher Roger Clemens' lawyer in a steroid investigation and President Bill Clinton's impeachment attorney, was confirmed by the Senate on Monday as chief of the Justice Department's criminal division. Senators also confirmed Tony West, a lawyer for "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, to lead the department's civil division and Christine Varney to head the antitrust division. Breuer was confirmed by a vote of 88-0, Varney by 87-1 and West, 82-4.