The Candidates and Antitrust Enforcement: Changes Are Coming

Global warming, pork-barrel spending, dependence on foreign oil and (lately in earnest) the economy have all been hot-button issues this campaign season as Americans debate the issue of who will next occupy the Oval Office. Now that Sens. McCain and Obama are the two candidates left standing, there is much speculation as to how a new administration will affect the antitrust policies and the enforcement of the antitrust laws in the United States.

To see where antitrust law is going, the benchmark must be what has transpired over the past eight years. While the administration of George W. Bush has predictably opposed universally reviled practices such as price-fixing cartels, it has been surprisingly lax in its enforcement of mergers through the Justice Department. The more independent Federal Trade Commission has generally marched to a different drummer with the opposed Whole Foods merger being the latest example. In fact, the Bush White House’s antitrust stance led The New York Times to write that antitrust enforcement has been operating at a low not seen since the last days of the Reagan years — and that was prior to the Federal Communications Commission approval of the multibillion-dollar mega-merger between AT&T and BellSouth. In response, McCain and Obama have both indicated that, if elected, the merger-friendly atmosphere prevailing in Washington will come to an end.

McCAIN