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Veazy III: Corporate power threatening liberty

The U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division Assistant General Attorney Jonathan Kanter thanked Fordham University’s Competition Law Institute for organizing its 49th annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, which gathers antitrust enforcers from around the world for a discussion about the antitrust enforcement and policy issues they and our country face together.

Below is a summary of what Mr. Kanter said: 

“We now face a pressing challenge that demands an aggressive coordinated response from the competition law-enforcement community.



“We have watched these changes lead to the collection of corporate power that threatens our liberty …. The digital age is not only characterized by the presence of monopoly power, but by new means of its exploitation, more threatening to individual freedom than ever before. Enforcers need to unplug the monopolization machine in digital platform industries. I would like to … talk about four ways we can do that together.

“First, we need to examine a monopolist’s course of conduct …what it is, and what protects it. My second strategy …. We need to expand our focus …. Some people call this “horizon canning” because … not only should we look for the threats that are coming, we should deal with them.




“My third suggestion …. We need to stop mergers that “tend to create a monopoly.” The text of the Clayton Act has used these words for more than a century, but we have not always paid them due attention. 

“My final strategy …. We need to obtain comprehensive relief that not only prevents the recurrence of a particular anti-competitive tactic, but that stops an exclusionary strategy altogether. 

“I am committed to deepening our international partnerships and the hard work of case cooperation to ensure those overlaps are complementary.” 

(1) “Solving the global Problem of Platform Monopolization” (Remarks), “Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Antitrust Division Delivers Keynote at FordhamCompetition Law Institute’s 49th annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy”, Press Release, Justice News, Office of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Justice, Sept. 16.

Emzy Veazy III

Aspen