Fox News’ senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano discusses whether or not the government can retroactively undo large mergers and the partisan divide in Wednesday’s House Judicial impeachment inquiry hearing on President Trump.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren drafted a bill that proposes sweeping changes to current anti-trust law and could undo the mergers of companies that have already been approved.
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People with direct knowledge of the bill, tell FOX Business the “Anti-Monopoly and Competition Restoration Act” would look at past mega-mergers and possibly take retroactive action to undo them, affecting tech giants like Amazon, which acquired Whole Foods and Zappos, and Facebook, which bought Whatsapp and Instagram.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMZN | AMAZON.COM INC. | 1,740.48 | -20.21 | -1.15% |
| FB | FACEBOOK INC. | 199.36 | +0.65 | +0.33% |
The leak, which took Warren’s team by surprise according to sources close to the senator told FOX Business’ Charlie Gasparino, that they felt “ambushed” by the leaked draft saying that the bill is not in its final stages.
In addition to taking retroactive to undo mergers of the past, Warren’s plan would change the standard for how mergers are approved in the future by having federal regulators review mergers based on consumer impact and would consider the effect a merger could have on innovation, entrepreneurship and privacy. The emphasis on privacy could affect companies like Apple and Google.
WARREN’S PLAN TO REVERSE MERGERS BAD FOR ECONOMY: STIFEL CEO
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | APPLE INC. | 265.58 | +3.84 | +1.47% |
| GOOGL | ALPHABET INC. | 1,326.96 | +8.02 | +0.61% |
The bill would give the Federal Trade Commission special powers and turn it into a “super-agency,” according to law professor Chris Sager at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. The bill would mandate the FTC to make regulations that would create specific prohibitions on the conduct of U.S. firms. The power to make regulations is not new, but it is something the FTC has avoided using. But the bill offers a glimpse at how might Warren might intend to use this FTC authority to implement regulations if she were elected president.
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The FTC would also have the sole power to sign off on all large mergers. This potentially new authority could make it making it more powerful on anti-trust issues than the Department of Justice. Sager thinks its time for a major overhaul of anti-trust regulation, but this bill won’t be the one to do it, he told FOX Business. And he added the bill as written “cannot be adopted — it is not politically plausible.”
