Antitrust

Antitrust policy — also called competition policy — uses law and regulation to prevent monopolies, break up illegally concentrated markets, and block anticompetitive mergers. The foundational U.S. antitrust laws are the Sherman Act (1890), the Clayton Act (1914), and the Federal Trade Commission Act (1914), enforced by the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission. After decades of relatively permissive enforcement guided by the consumer welfare standard — which focuses narrowly on whether prices rise for consumers — the Biden administration elevated antitrust enforcement significantly, with FTC Chair Lina Khan and DOJ Antitrust Chief Jonathan Kanter pursuing cases against Amazon, Google, Apple, Meta, and major corporate mergers in industries from healthcare to airlines. The DOJ won landmark cases establishing that Google illegally monopolized the internet search market (2024) and that it holds an illegal monopoly in ad tech (2025). Amazon faces ongoing scrutiny for its dual role as both a marketplace and a seller on that marketplace. Big tech platforms are the central focus of modern antitrust debate, but consolidation spans the economy: healthcare, airlines, banking, agriculture, and meatpacking are all highly concentrated. The European Union has been more aggressive than the U.S. on tech competition, imposing multi-billion-euro fines and enacting the Digital Markets Act to govern how large platforms interact with competitors. Congressional efforts to pass new antitrust legislation for tech platforms have stalled despite bipartisan interest.