Biden to appoint Google critic Jonathan Kanter to guide DOJ antitrust division

President Joe Biden will nominate Jonathan Kanter, an ardent Google critic and competitors lawyer, to guide the Justice Department’s antitrust division, as first reported by Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Kanter has an extended historical past of representing corporations in competitors circumstances in opposition to Google, and he opened his personal regulation agency final 12 months. If confirmed by the Senate, Kanter would take the helm on a slate of circumstances in opposition to huge tech corporations led by the Justice Department, together with a monopoly lawsuit filed in opposition to Google final October. The case accuses the search large of making an unlawful monopoly within the digital advertisements market.

“Jonathan Kanter is a distinguished antitrust lawyer with over 20 years of experience,” the White House mentioned in a press launch Tuesday. “Throughout his career, Kanter has also been a leading advocate and expert in the effort to promote strong and meaningful antitrust enforcement and competition policy.”

The Justice Department can also be presently engaged in a sweeping competitors investigation into Apple and the necessities it locations on builders in its App Store.

Kanter is simply the most recent Biden nomination marking a big step ahead in antitrust enforcement, particularly within the tech business. Earlier this 12 months, Biden nominated Lina Khan, a tech antitrust pioneer and creator of the broadly cited “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” authorized paper, to chair the Federal Trade Commission. Tim Wu, one other progressive antitrust champion, presently sits on the National Economic Council.

Kanter aligns carefully with Khan and Wu. But in contrast to Khan, who wants a majority of votes on the FTC to implement antitrust regulation, Kanter would be capable to file lawsuits to cease mergers on his personal as deputy legal professional normal.

Earlier this month, Biden signed an govt order designed to advertise competitors with a robust give attention to know-how corporations. The order included a brand new mandate requiring “greater scrutiny of mergers, especially by dominant internet platforms, with a particular attention to the acquisition of nascent competitors, serial mergers, the accumulation of data, competition by ‘free’ products, and the effect on user privacy.” The order additionally referred to as on the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to concern new rulings selling coverage objectives just like the “right to repair” and internet neutrality.