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What antitrust enforcement will look like during a second Trump administration is, like antitrust law, complicated. Notions that Republicans are pro-business and therefore will take a laissez-faire approach to antitrust enforcement are outdated and simplistic. During Trump’s first term, antitrust enforcement was far from moribund, blending traditional Republican preferences for deregulation with a populist skepticism toward Big Tech and market concentration generally. This anomalistic meeting of progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans in the antitrust space even garnered a mash-up moniker – the “Khanservaties” – a group of conservative Republicans including Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and erstwhile Attorney General nominee and former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, who praised Biden-appointed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance also provided backhanded praise for Khan, stating, “I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job.” Continue Reading Antitrust During Trump 2.0: It’s Complicated

The subject of corporate leniency as a tool for combating criminal conduct seems to be top of mind for federal prosecutors. In the last few months, the Deputy Attorney General, Lisa Monaco, and senior enforcers in the Criminal Division, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lisa H. Miller, have announced and reinforced the Division’s commitment to its new Corporate Enforcement Policy, which rewards timely self-reporting and other forms of “extraordinary” cooperation in the form of declinations and deferred prosecution agreements.[i]Continue Reading Recent Antitrust Leniency Program Revisions Examined in ABA’s 2023 Edition of the Antitrust Cartel Leniency and Sentencing Handbook

Earlier this month, on the eve of the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division rolled out significant updates to its Leniency Program, most readily discernible through an augmented, plain-language set of 82 Frequently Asked Questions, as well as the Division’s updated Leniency Policies and Procedures and Model Corporate Conditional Leniency Letter.
Continue Reading Updates to DOJ Leniency Policy Further Complicate Decisions to Seek Antitrust Immunity; Some Suggestions from the Field