Posted on

Trump adds antitrust expert to Justice transition team

David Higbee

Trust Buster Teddy Rosevelt

ReutersNovember 28, 2016

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Republican antitrust veteran has been named on Monday to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team for the Justice Department, a choice that lawyers say signals a more hands-off approach to antitrust enforcement compared to Democratic President Barack Obama.

David Higbee, a partner at the law firm Hunton & Williams LLP, worked for President George W. Bush’s administration from 2001 to 2005, spending the last year in the Antitrust Division. Since then he has advised clients on merger reviews, antitrust litigation and government investigations.

Higbee joins Joshua Wright, an economist and former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, as the only two people on Trump’s transition team with a background in antitrust.

The Obama administration has challenged an unusually large number of mergers in the last few years, leading to the collapse of Halliburton Co’s plan to buy Baker Hughes Inc, among others. Currently, the Justice Department is suing Anthem Inc to prevent it from buying Cigna Corp and Aetna Inc to stop its purchase of Humana Inc.

While Trump, who campaigned as a populist, has talked tough on media mergers such as AT&T Inc buying Time Warner Inc, and singled out Amazon.com Inc for antitrust scrutiny, Higbee’s naming heralds a return to a traditional Republican view of merger enforcement, lawyers said.

“Higbee will have that sensible caution,” said Bruce McDonald, another veteran of the Bush administration now at the law firm Jones Day. “He will be more confident in business and markets and less confident that government can identify and fix problems.”

An antitrust division designed by Higbee would be tough on price-fixing and mergers of competitors but would be cautious in challenging deals where companies buy suppliers or incidents where companies are accused of breaking antitrust law to run competitors out of business, McDonald said.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/trump-adds-antitrust-expert-justice-transition-team-235436888–finance.html

Posted on

SOPA opponents may go nuclear and other 2012 predictions

SOPA opponents may go nuclear and other 2012 predictions
by Declan McCullagh  December 29, 2011 4:00 AM PST

The Internet’s most popular destinations, including eBay, Google, Facebook, and Twitter seem to view Hollywood-backed copyright legislation as an existential threat.

It was Google co-founder Sergey Brin who warned that the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act “would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world.” Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman argue that the bills give the Feds unacceptable “power to censor the Web.”
But these companies have yet to roll out the heavy artillery.

When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA, you’ll know they’re finally serious.
True, it would be the political equivalent of a nuclear option–possibly drawing retributions from the the influential politicos backing SOPA and Protect IP–but one that could nevertheless be launched in 2012.

https://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57349540-281/sopa-opponents-may-go-nuclear-and-other-2012-predictions/?tag=mncol;topStories