Lina Khan's appointment as chair of the FTC puts tech giants under tighter scrutiny

 

By Emmanuel Legrand

Lina Khan has been appointed Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by US President Joe Biden, following her June 15 69-28 Senate confirmation. She is expected to open a new era of increasing scrutiny over the dealings of big tech companies.

  Khan will lead a team of five commissioners with a 3-2 Democratic majority (the other Commissioners are Noah Joshua Phillips, Rohit Chopra, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who served as acting Chair, and Christine S. Wilson). Her term expires on September 25, 2024. 

  “It is a tremendous honor to have been selected by President Biden to lead the Federal Trade Commission,” said Khan. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to protect the public from corporate abuse."

Safeguard fair competition

  The London-born 32-year-old law professor at Columbia University has been arguing that competitions laws need to be better adapted to the challenges of monitoring the activities of tech giants.

  In her 2017 paper 'Amazon's Antitrust Paradox' (Yale Law Journal), she advocated for a wider sets of benchmarks to evaluate antitrust issues than just pricing and its impact on consumers. 

  "Congress created the FTC to safeguard fair competition and protect consumers, workers, and honest businesses from unfair & deceptive practices. I look forward to upholding this mission with vigour and serving the American public," wrote Khan on Twitter after she was confirmed by the Senate. 

Strengthen merger and monopolisation enforcement

  Khan previously was a legal adviser to FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra and served as counsel to US House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law 16-month investigation into the business dealings of online platforms which eventually determined that they engaged in anti-competitive practices.

  The authors of the report "identified a broad set of reforms" and made a series of recommendations to "address anti-competitive conduct in digital markets" and to "strengthen merger and monopolisation enforcement."

  "Her approval in the Senate also points to some bipartisan agreement among legislators that Big Tech needs some tighter reins," noted Seeking Alpha, adding that Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet and Apple"are watching closely."

A brilliant legal mind

  The FTC is in the process of launching procedures against Facebook for "illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anti-competitive conduct." Other companies such as  Amazon are also under scrutiny.

  "With a brilliant legal mind and a comprehensive understanding of antitrust issues, Ms. Khan is the right woman at the right time to lead the agency and will be the youngest FTC Chair in history," said Maria A. Pallante, President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, who added that Khan had "clearly and confidently defined the threats posed to the public by the dominant tech platforms that have come to control much of our economy and society, including Amazon’s dominance over retail sales and Google’s dominance over search."

  Meanwhile, President Biden still has to appoint someone to lead the Department of Justice's antitrust division that has been without leadership wince the departure of Makan Delrahim on January 20 of this year.