Legal News

Varney Getting Pushback on Aggressive Antitrust Agenda

By Ashby Jones

The Obama administration has made no bones about its desire to do more trust-busting than did the preceding administration; one of the first moves by the DOJ’s antitrust head, former Hogan & Hartson partner Christine Varney, was to repudiate much of the Bush administration’s policy on monopolization claims (click here and here for earlier posts on that).

But just how far will Varney be able to push things? That’s a question raised in this NYT article from over the weekend. According to the article, Varney’s already getting a bit of pushback from colleagues in the administration.

So far, Varney has hit the ground running. She’s begun looking into complaints concerning the cable and telecom industries and has taken a harder look at agreements made by the pharmaceutical industry as well as a settlement between Google and book publishers and authors to make more books available online.

But according to the Times, in some cases, the new approach is being opposed by administration officials. Some worry about the wisdom of a crackdown while the nation’s in the throes of recession. Other officials disagree on the economics of the situation, feeling that larger companies and industry alliances can provide consumer benefits.

One recent clash, writes the Times, involved the Transportation Department’s approval of an antitrust immunity request involving a global alliance of nine airlines. The request was granted over Varney’s wishes.

In another area, writes the Times, officials weighed but rejected a significant antitrust role as a way to reduce the size of large companies considered too big to be allowed to fail.

According to Mark Cooper, an antitrust expert and director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group, the main conflict — positioning Varney and her supporters against agencies that regulate industry — is likely to continue unfolding. "The struggles between the expert agencies and the Justice Department get to the heart and soul of exactly what the competition policy of the Obama administration will be," said

He added: "Now you have an antitrust division that cares about competition, and it is running up against the expert agencies that haven't changed their attitudes yet."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 27, 2009 (boomark / email).