FTC

It turns out that the ethics official who recommended that Khan recuse herself from a case involving Meta is an owner of Meta stock. This ethics judgment was music to the ears of the media organizations, Republicans, and antitrust hacks who have been attacking Lina Khan throughout her leadership. Beyond being wrong and selective in singling out FTC officials for ethics concerns, the problem with Pankey’s opinion is deeply ironic. Pankey herself has a legitimate conflict of interest in relation to Meta. 

The ethics officer who recommended Lina Khan recuse herself from the Meta/Within case owns between $15k and $50k in Meta stock.

The Revolving Door Project sent a letter to Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, who is presiding over the FTC’s challenge of the Microsoft/Activision merger, after Judge Corley disclosed that her son is an employee of Microsoft but did not recuse. This relationship may violate the Code of Conduct for US Judges.

Implicit in the worldview of these revolvers is the idea that corporations should be free to operate and acquire competitors with near impunity, therefore antitrust enforcement should be as narrowly tailored as possible. This is obviously problematic — we need regulators that believe in the government’s ability to take on corporations with outsized market influence — but Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s Christine Varney recently took things many steps further in her representation of the biotech company Illumina in its case against the FTC. Varney doesn’t just attack specific enforcement actions as unwarranted, but calls into question the constitutionality of the FTC’s authority to issue enforcement actions in the first place. 

Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s Christine Varney, a former head of the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, and other BigLaw lawyers representing Illumina and Grail filed a brief this week seeking to secure a merger which the FTC said would “diminish innovation in the U.S. market” for cancer detection tests. Revolving Door Project Research Director Andrea Beaty released the following statement concerning the brief and its authors.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and DOJ Antitrust Division have long served as an essential stop for antitrust experts looking to maximize opportunities, influence, and compensation at BigLaw firms and monopolistic corporations. By spending some time learning the ins and outs of government investigations and enforcement efforts, revolvers are seen by potential corporate employers to be better equipped to assist corporations in antitrust lawsuits against their former government employers.

Demand Progress and the Revolving Door Project sent a letter to President Biden reminding him that neither the White House nor Senate Democrats “should feel compelled to expedite the nomination and/or confirmation of Republicans to independent agencies” particularly while Democratic nominees remain languishing in the Senate due to years of Senate Republicans’ malfeasance.

Today marks Christine Wilson’s final day as a Commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission. The question on the top of our minds: Will Wilson follow in the footsteps of her former colleague, and RDP’s 2022 “Revolver of the Year,” Noah Phillips, and move to a cushy BigLaw job defending corporations from antitrust enforcement? 

Christine Wilson leaving the FTC is good news for anyone who cares about effective antitrust enforcement. A quintessential revolving door figure, Wilson’s tenure was only useful to her job prospects once she decided it was time to leave the FTC.

Congressional Democrats managed to pass a few crucial measures during December’s lame duck session. One tiny fraction of the omnibus bill to fund the government was the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, a measure for which anti-monopoly advocates have long been pushing. And beyond the DOJ Antitrust and FTC’s edict to enforce competition, the FTC has another underfunded but crucial mission: consumer protection. 

Housing experts have drafted an executive order to protect tenants and stop rent-gouging. All Biden has to do is sign it.

On November 10th, eight groups sent a letter to Chair Khan urging the FTC to release documents shedding light on Commissioner Noah Phillips potential conflicts of interest as

Is the corporate media doing a good enough job of explaining the machinations and implications of a merger between the nation’s two largest grocery chains?

Outgoing FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips recused himself from a recent FTC vote involving Amazon and BigLaw firm Covington & Burling. Revolving Door Project filed a FOIA request seeking information on Phillips’ post-employment plans and looked back on Phillips’ corporate-friendly record.