Re:U.S. Accuses Google of Illegally Protecting Monopoly
by ShamelessC on Wednesday October 21, 2020 @08:05AM
(#24846951)
Have we ever "busted up a monopoly" using 2? Is the FTC able to retroactively split up a company that was originally formed via large mergers and acquisitions? Split out e.g. Youtube from Google as it was originally an acquisition? That seems unlikely to me but I don't know much about it at all.
If you can't do that, then you're basically just preventing a monopoly from happening in advance, right? Or trying to at least.
At any rate, I'm assuming US vs. Google will be required to reference precedent set in Sherman & Clayton + subsequent court rulings and _not_ be able to use their own mergers against them as they were approved by the FTC in the first place. Is that also correct?
In the US, there are two major areas of antitrust law and enforcement:
1) Sherman & Clayton Acts (1890, 1914) - outlaws cartels and anticompetitive activities (that is, activities that tend to lead to monopolies, but doesn't outlaw monopolies themselves). Price gouging is not an antitrust issue, but predatory pricing and price fixing are (you might have meant these terms). This area is primarily established via case law and enforced by the courts (and DOJ AD).
2) Merger guidelines/Federal Trade Commission (1968) - wherein key mergers must be reviewed and approved by the FTC. This area is more sensitive to political climate / executive branch as it's executive-appointed FTC regulators who set the guidelines and give approvals. We are now exiting an era of historic hands-off-ness.
Source: had a professor who is famous in antitrust world