Protecting Competition in the American Economy: Merger Control, Tech Titans, Labor Markets
Click here to read the full article onlineIn the United States, we have a robust set of antitrust laws and antitrust institu- tions designed to protect and promote competition. These laws date back to the passage of the Sherman Act in 1890, supplemented in 1914 by the Clayton Act and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act. They are enforced by the Anti- trust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and by the FTC, together with private antitrust litigation, in which plaintiffs are awarded three times any damages they have suffered. For more than a century, a rich body of case law interpreting these statutes has grown up, heavily influenced by economic research and economic evidence. Indeed, over the twentieth century, the United States led the world in creating and implementing competition policies to control cartels and mergers and to rein in monopoly power.