OTI Welcomes ‘Deeply Substantive’ Klobuchar Bill to Modernize Antitrust Laws

On Thursday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), introduced legislation to overhaul the nation’s antitrust laws. Among other things, the bill would shift the burden of proof onto companies to show that their proposed mergers are not anticompetitive and would increase resources for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), both of which enforce federal antitrust law. Klobuchar leads the Senate subcommittee on antitrust law.

OTI has long advocated for stronger antitrust enforcement and modernization of the nation’s antitrust laws, particularly with respect to digital markets. OTI has actively opposed consolidation in the telecom and tech sectors over the years, including several anticompetitive mergers. Last year, OTI urged the FTC and DOJ to modernize their rules for vertical mergers and supported a groundbreaking report from Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) on antitrust enforcement in digital markets.

The following statement can be attributed to Joshua Stager, senior counsel at New America’s Open Technology Institute:

“Senator Klobuchar’s bill confronts a reality that OTI and many others have lamented for years: our antitrust laws are broken and in desperate need of repair. Brazenly anticompetitive mergers have been rubber-stamped by regulators and judges. Whistleblowers have revealed how easily antitrust enforcement can be corrupted by political interference. Many sectors of the U.S. economy are controlled by just a handful of companies, creating precisely the kind of anti-consumer, anti-innovation oligopolies that our antitrust laws were designed to prevent.

“Senator Klobuchar has offered a comprehensive, deeply substantive approach to fixing these problems. Her bill would strengthen legal presumptions against anticompetitive mergers and restore DOJ and FTC resources after decades of funding cuts—two reforms that OTI has long advocated for. We welcome this legislation and thank Senator Klobuchar for her leadership. We need to make our antitrust laws work for the 21st Century.”