As Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft hover around $10 trillion in market value, regulators expected to try to cut off acquisitions and pass new laws amid a raft of antitrust lawsuits.
So far, Wall Street has shrugged as the five companies under the microscope — Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, +0.67% GOOG, +0.63%, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. FB, +3.26%, Apple Inc. AAPL, +2.30%, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -0.82%, and, yes, Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +2.32% — have been targeted by governments and rivals across the globe.
“The difference is that we’re talking about interconnected companies that own an industry versus just one company [with Microsoft],” she said. “And there is bipartisan support, which makes it easier politically.” Big Tech’s treacherous path to antitrust enforcement has three potentially damaging roads: federal agencies challenging acquisitions and mergers; legislation tailored to stimulate competition and curtail the influence of tech’s dominant platforms; and federal and state lawsuits.
The Justice Department’s direction is less clear at this point, but signals from Kanter’s confirmation hearing point to “vigorous enforcement” of antitrust laws. “Legislation or not, that will not affect at all DoJ and FTC in antitrust enforcement based on existing law,” Williams said. “The pendulum has definitely swung after years of inactivity and readily-approved mergers.”
“Boards with exit strategies are huddling with antitrust lawyers to see if this lasts the next two years,” she said. “A key question is how soon the FTC shakes things up. To me, they speed up the war drums and hit the ground running in 2022. There is a public appetite and more momentum this time than around” than when the Justice Department sued Microsoft in the 1990s, she added.
Steyer anticipates changes to privacy law, with a federal law modeled after California’s CCPA in 2018, and platform accountability in the form of revisions to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Most important, the $1 billion in funding for FTC and Justice as part of the evolving Build Back Better bill would give regulators the ability to enforce.
And midterm elections could change the course of Democrats’ legislation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in June signaled his opposition to giving regulators too much authority and that House Republicans plan to target other tech issues, namely around “free speech [Section 230] and free enterprise.”
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