Those tracking tech policy and regulation would be forgiven for asking: is there something in the water in the nation’s Capitol? In the first half of 2021, U.S. lawmakers have proposed a staggering nine bills–six in the House of Representatives and three in the Senate–to reform federal antitrust laws and supplement them with regulatory backstops.
This comes on top of efforts to reform state laws (for example, New York is considering a major revamp of its antitrust law1https://www.natlawreview.com/article/new-york-antitrust-law-reform-bill-fails-to-clear-assembly), the impact of a change in the composition of the Federal Trade Commission under a new Presidential administration (including the appointment of a progressive antitrust reformer as its Chair)2https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/technology/lina-khan-ftc.html, and a bevy of massive antitrust lawsuits filed by federal and state officials against the largest companies in the world that go to the core of vertically integrated business models in consumer-facing tech markets (more on that here and here).
How to make sense of the laws being proposed in Congress and fit them into the broader U.S. and worldwide context of antitrust enforcement and policy debates surrounding market concentration?
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