Antitrust lawsuits have declined since the pandemic despite a high-profile push by Washington to limit the concentration of power in key industries.
Civil antitrust cases alleging monopolistic mergers or business practices fell 42% between March 2020 and March 2023, according to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, dropping to 361 from 626.
"Since 2015, the trend has been fairly significantly downward," said Ron Porter, a data expert with the company.Perhaps a stronger enforcement climate is keeping anticompetitive behavior in check, or the government is choosing to go after bigger targets in exchange for fewer cases to save on costs and staffing.that when confronting big companies her staff sometimes can be “outgunned” on lawyers by as much as 10 to 1.
The drop in private cases could be a concern for federal antitrust regulators because corporate plaintiffs can provide "deregulated" checks and balances that can be overlooked or under-prosecuted by government regulators, University of Michigan Law School professor Daniel Crane said in a 2010Federal antitrust regulators like the FTC and the Justice Department have "become more and more dependent on private actions that serve that deterrent function," Stutz said.
To bring an antitrust suit against Amazon as a private plaintiff you would have to hire a "fancy antitrust lawyer" and "a fancy antitrust economist" and thus "the scale doesn't make sense to bring these claims individually," economist expert Hal Singer, managing director of Econ One, told lawmakers on Capitol Hill during an antitrust hearing in February 2021.
Antitrust Cases Antitrust Violations Antitrust Lawsuits Amazon Private Suits Randy Stutz American Antitrust Institute Apple
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