David Cohen

Last summer, I lamented how the Department of Justice – Antitrust Division (DOJ), without Senate confirmed leadership, was hastily pushing through policies that augmented the already-enormous power of Big Tech and benefitted China’s interests. Similarly, I uncovered how the App Association, a Big Tech-funded advocacy organization masquerading as a group of small app developers, was able to trick the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) into inviting it to speak at its July 2021 Commission meeting alongside legitimate small businesses. This is the same association that supported Apple in its litigation against (real) app developers, issued a June 2021 press release against the House bills aimed at regulating Big Tech, and misses no opportunity to support Big Tech interests.

Historically an esoteric area of law, in recent years, antitrust policy is drawing broader attention as a tool to curb the exercise of monopolistic market power, especially by big tech behemoths. Congressional reports on both Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle, multiple legislative initiatives to reform U.S. antitrust law, and a recent book by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, are some indicators of this trend. Along these lines, broad outcry broke out against rumored Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division leadership appointments of candidates representing big tech interests, such as Karen Dunn (Apple, Amazon), Renata Hesse (Google, Amazon), Susan Davies (Facebook), and against Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco’s (Apple, Google) involvement in deliberations over the nomination of a DOJ Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for Antitrust.