ICYMI: Top FTC Antitrust Official Warns Against Changing Antitrust Standards
Speaking at a Heritage Foundation conference in DC yesterday, Bruce Hoffman, Acting Director of the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission, defended the government’s stance on antitrust enforcement and said no dramatic changes to the agency’s approach were needed.
Hoffman’s comments referenced former Obama administration economist Carl Shapiro, and align with the long bipartisan tradition of using the consumer welfare standard in antitrust enforcement.
Acting Director Of Bureau Of Competition At The Federal Trade Commission Bruce Hoffman: Recent Criticisms Of Antitrust Policy Are An Attack On “A Bipartisan 40-Year Consensus.” “I found it a little surprising that, this year, when I came to the FTC one of the things I was greeted with was an attack on a 40-year consensus, a bipartisan 40-year consensus, about the focus and direction of enforcement. Any vigorous repudiation from a number of different directions of the Obama Administration’s antitrust enforcement program of being weak and timid, which I think are words that Bill used. What I wanted to say is, in our view, antitrust is neither timid nor weak. First of all, I think the point, and Alden mentioned this earlier, the US economy is pretty vibrant, extremely innovative, and growing. That’s a point that I think doesn’t get emphasized enough in this discussion because it sets out the empirical facts that are relevant to this point.” (Bruce Hoffman, “Trump Antitrust Policy After One Year,” Heritage Foundation, 1/23/18)
Referencing Obama Economist Carl Shapiro, Acting Director Of Bureau Of Competition At The Federal Trade Commission Bruce Hoffman Says Company Growth Is Not Inherently A Bad Thing. “One of the things that Carl did, was he debunked the notion that that increase in concentration even at the national level is a meaningful thing. Because the point that he makes is that number one, not only does it mix things like all retail together, so then you’re comparing say the growth of Walmart with the growth of restaurants, but also it has no vehicle by which you could discern whether the change in national level concentration occurs simply because firms have been really good at what they do, and so they’ve grown.” (Bruce Hoffman, “Trump Antitrust Policy After One Year,” Heritage Foundation, 1/23/18)
Acting Director Of Bureau Of Competition At The Federal Trade Commission Bruce Hoffman: There Is Not “An Empirical Foundation” To Replace The Antitrust Consumer Welfare Standard. “The reason this is important is because when you’re talking about replacing 40 years of emphasis on consumer welfare and the protection of the competitive process, you need to have to have a pretty doggone good empirical foundation to do that. And I haven’t yet seen that demonstrated.” (Bruce Hoffman, “Trump Antitrust Policy After One Year,” Heritage Foundation, 1/23/18)
Carl Shapiro, Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General For Economics At The Department Of Justice’s Antitrust Division, Says Proper Antitrust Enforcement Is About Protecting The Competitive Process, Not About Protecting Competitors. “I believe this approach is sound and has widespread support among industrial organization economists. So I say: let these inquiries proceed when suspicious conduct can be identified. But in doing so, let us avoid a ‘big is bad’ mentality and let us truly have the interests of consumers in mind. We learned long ago that proper antitrust enforcement is about protecting consumers, and protecting the competitive process, not about protecting competitors. We must not forget that guiding principle. Indeed, that principle is especially important in markets subject to large economies of scale, whether those scale economies are based on traditional production economies or based on network effects, which are often important in the tech sector.” (Carl Shapiro, “Antitrust In A Time Of Populism,” Haas School Of Business, 10/24/17)