Antitrust Laws: Promoting Competition and Free Markets
Critically important but commonly misunderstood, antitrust laws are meant to promote competition and protect consumers. Here’s everything you need to know.
America's antitrust laws promote competition and benefit consumers.
Antitrust laws ensure competition in a free and open market economy, which is the foundation of any vibrant economy. And healthy competition among sellers in an open marketplace gives consumers the benefits of lower prices, higher quality products and services, more choices, and greater innovation.
The core of U.S. antitrust law was created by three pieces of legislation: the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Clayton Antitrust Act. These laws have evolved along with the market, vigilantly guarding against anti-competitive harm that arises from abuse of dominance, bid rigging, price fixing, and customer allocation.
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U.S. legislative proposals could undermine U.S. economic and security interests and strengthen foreign rivals without any apparent benefit to U.S. consumers.
America's Antitrust Laws: Explained in 60 Seconds
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Antitrust laws ensure competition thrives, providing consumers with lower prices and higher-quality products and services. However, some seek to rewrite these laws and undermine consumer power in the marketplace. Before Congress starts making unnecessary and harmful changes, it’s important to set a few things straight.
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The agencies' proposed changes to HSR forms and new merger guidelines will increase costs and government red tape for companies looking to close mergers.
The Chamber is proposing simple, yet effective, changes to the FTC's recusal process to ensure due process and transparency.
Petition would require commissioners to seek written legal guidance of agency ethics officials and disclose in writing the rationale for any decisions to decline to follow the recommendations of ethics officials.
More concerning is the department’s efforts to ignore evidence and tip the scales in violation of fundamental due process rights.
This timeline shows the ways in which Chairwoman Khan has moved to silence dissent at the FTC and consolidated power in ways that call into question the independence of the agency.
Comments in response to TTB’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding competition in the beer, wine, and spirits industry filed on June 26, 2023.
Comments in response to the Federal Trade Commission; notice of proposed rulemaking to amend the Negative Option Rule filed on June 23, 2023.
The Chamber's comments on best practices of cloud computing providers filed on June 20, 2023.
