May 15, 2009
New DOJ Antitrust Chief Announces Aggressive Enforcement Philosophy
In her first major public speech, new Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varney announced last week that difficult economic times call for more aggressive – not less – antitrust enforcement and pledged the DOJ’s cooperation with other parts of the Executive Branch in pursuing reforms of numerous industries, including banking, healthcare, energy, telecommunications and transportation.
In addition, she announced that the DOJ’s Antitrust Division has withdrawn a controversial report issued last September under the Bush administration. The Report addressed single-firm conduct under Section 2 of the Sherman Act and has been widely viewed as applying legal standards that would make it difficult for the DOJ to bring new cases involving monopolization or predatory practices. Plenty of antitrust blogs have addressed this important speech; we have a list of those blogs in our “Antitrust” Practice Area.