WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota introduced an overhaul of the nation’s antitrust laws Thursday. Her bill would change the way big corporations can merge to dominate markets and how big companies swallow up small companies or use their size to force them out of business.
“Competition and effective antitrust enforcement are critical to protecting workers and consumers, spurring innovation, and promoting economic equity,” said Klobuchar in a statement. “While the United States once had some of the most effective antitrust laws in the world, our economy today faces a massive competition problem.”
Klobuchar, the new chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, said that current standards for proving that mergers could cause monopolies are so encumbered that they favor big business. Klobuchar has long advocated for more antitrust scrutiny, but her new role gives her a larger platform to pursue it.
Klobuchar’s Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act shifts the burden for proving that mergers and acquisitions don’t restrict markets unfairly. Companies would have to show why consolidation does not risk making markets less competitive. Right now, the law requires the government to prove that that they will.
At stake is the ability of consumers to get lower prices driven by competition and workers to get fair wages because more employers will compete for their services.
In addition to changing the way risk gets analyzed, Minnesota’s senior senator also wants to increase funding to enforce violations of antitrust laws.
Her legislation could impact the market dominance of big tech companies such as Google and Facebook. Critics charge that they monopolize markets in ways that allow them to stifle other companies from succeeding in their market sectors, while controlling pricing that insures their financial dominance.
Jim Spencer • 202-662-7432