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Presidential Administration Begins to Focus Its View of Antitrust Enforcement

March 31, 2025

Presidential Administration Begins to Focus Its View of Antitrust Enforcement

March 31, 2025

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In particular, the task force will focus on identifying and potentially eliminating laws and regulations in the healthcare, housing, transportation, energy, and food and agriculture industries.

Recent actions by both the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) indicate that the enforcement agencies are continuing with policies similar to the prior administration, albeit with slightly different objectives and focus. Businesses should monitor public statements and recent enforcement activity to evaluate how antitrust enforcement priorities at the agencies are taking shape. Some recent highlights include:

  • DOJ has launched a task force asking the public to identify laws and regulations that are raising barriers to competition.
  • DOJ has indicated that use of a pricing algorithms and sharing of competitively sensitive information via a third party could violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
  • FTC has maintained its focus on protecting competition in labor markets and on protecting consumers that utilize Big Tech platforms. 

Last week, DOJ announced its intention to eliminate anticompetitive state and federal laws and regulations that “undermine free market competition and harm consumers, workers, and businesses” via the formation of the Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force. The purpose of the task force is to support President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders to deregulate the American economy, and it asks for public comments to identify laws and regulations that raise barriers to competition by May 26, 2025. In particular, the task force will focus on identifying and potentially eliminating laws and regulations in the healthcare, housing, transportation, energy, and food and agriculture industries.

Since 2023, when the FTC and DOJ withdrew longstanding guidance related to how the agencies would evaluate exchanges of information for industry benchmarking, there has been uncertainty regarding the situations where information exchange could lead to antitrust enforcement. At the same time, technology related to algorithmic pricing tools, especially those involving artificial intelligence, has developed rapidly. DOJ recently filed a statement of interest addressing the proper legal framework for analyzing claims involving the joint use of pricing algorithms in In re MultiPlan Health Insurance Provider Litigation, Case No. 1:24-cv-0679, MDL No. 3121 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 27, 2025) that seems consistent with the prior administration’s stance. In the statement, DOJ explained that competitors’ inconsistent use of a common pricing algorithm does not preclude a finding of “concerted action” because the actionable conduct under Sherman Act Section 1 is the competitors’ agreement to fix the starting point for prices, not the competitors’ subsequent, consistent use of those prices. DOJ noted that competitors’ exchange of competitively sensitive information can violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act even if that information exchange was facilitated through a third-party conduit.

President Trump recently removed two Democratic commissioners at the FTC, and those two former commissioners have filed suit contesting that removal. Despite the shake-up, the FTC seems poised to continue some of the enforcement priorities of the prior administration, including focusing on protecting competition in labor markets and protecting consumers of Big Tech. The FTC recently launched a public inquiry to better understand “how consumers—including by potentially unfair or deceptive acts or practices, or potentially unfair methods of competition—have been harmed by the policies of tech firms.”

Conclusion

Despite the change in administration, businesses should remain steadfast in maintaining robust antitrust compliance programs to ensure that their practices and conduct do not adversely affect competition. Companies should consult with experienced counsel to help them navigate this rapidly evolving enforcement landscape. 

For More Information

If you have any questions about this Alert, please contact Sean P. McConnell, Alessandra Mungioli, any of the attorneys in our Antitrust and Competition Group, or the attorney in the firm with whom you are regularly in contact.

Disclaimer: This Alert has been prepared and published for informational purposes only and is not offered, nor should be construed, as legal advice. For more information, please see the firm's full disclaimer.