Lina Khan, an antitrust researcher centered on Big Tech’s immense market energy, was sworn in on Tuesday as chair of the US Federal Trade Commission, a victory for progressives searching for a clampdown on tech companies who maintain a hefty share of a rising sector of the financial system.
Hours earlier, the US Senate had confirmed Khan, with bipartisan help.
She just lately taught at Columbia Law School. Previously, as a staffer for the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, she helped write an enormous report alleging abuses of market dominance by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google mother or father Alphabet.
“We applaud President Biden and the Senate for recognising the urgent need to address runaway corporate power,” advocacy group Public Citizen mentioned in a press release.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted that the administration’s choice of Khan was “tremendous news.”
“With Chair Khan at the helm, we have a huge opportunity to make big, structural change by reviving antitrust enforcement and fighting monopolies that threaten our economy, our society, and our democracy,” Warren mentioned in a separate assertion.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), whose board contains representatives from tech firms, issued a press release warning {that a} “populist approach to antitrust” would “cause lasting self-inflicted damage that benefits foreign, less meritorious rivals.”
The federal authorities and teams of states are pursuing varied lawsuits and investigations into Big Tech firms. The FTC has sued Facebook and is investigating Amazon. The Justice Department has sued Google.
Ahead of Khan’s appointment, Google and Amazon declined remark and Apple and Facebook didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Biden beforehand chosen fellow progressive and Big Tech critic Tim Wu to hitch the National Economic Council.
In 2017, Khan wrote a extremely regarded article, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” for the Yale Law Journal. It argued that the normal antitrust deal with worth was insufficient to determine antitrust harms performed by Amazon.
In addition to antitrust, the FTC investigates allegations of misleading promoting.
On that entrance, Khan will be part of an company adapting to a unanimous Supreme Court ruling from April which mentioned the company couldn’t use a selected a part of its statute, 13(b), to demand shoppers get restitution from misleading firms however can solely ask for an injunction. Congress is contemplating a legislative repair.
Khan beforehand labored on the FTC as a authorized adviser to Commissioner Rohit Chopra, Biden’s decide to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
© Thomson Reuters 2021
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