Klobuchar and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Nov. 5 jointly announced the unveiling of the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act. The legislation would make it easier for the Government to block deals it believes violate antitrust laws by requiring companies with dominant market positions to prove that mergers don’t stifle competition.
“We’re increasingly seeing companies choose to buy their rivals rather than compete,” Klobuchar announced in a statement.
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“This bipartisan legislation will put an end to those anticompetitive acquisitions by making it more difficult for dominant digital platforms to eliminate their competitors and enhance the platform’s market power,” she went on to note.
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Klobuchar and Cotton’s proposed bill would shift the burden in merger enforcement to dominant platforms to prove that the merger isn’t anticompetitive.
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“Big tech firms have bought up rivals to crush their competition, expand their monopolistic market share, and to harm working Americans. That’s bad for America,” Cotton said in a statement.
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“Under this bill, the largest tech monopolies will have the burden of proving that further acquisitions are lawful and good for the American people,” he added.
In October, Klobuchar joined Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and others to introduce a bill that would ban big tech platforms from unjustly favoring their own products and services. The American Innovation and Choice Online Act seeks to bolster online competition and prevent dominant platforms from abusing their market power in anticompetitive ways.
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“Big Tech needs to be held accountable if they behave in a discriminatory manner,” Grassley insisted in a statement. “Our bill will help create a more even playing field and ensure that small businesses are able to compete with these platforms.”
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Opposed to the American Innovation and Choice Online Act was a coalition of nonprofit policy organizations, who signed an open letter on Oct. 28. The opposers wrote that “the big Government regulations included in this bill would empower enforcers to weaponize antitrust laws and punish American companies for providing products and services that consumers widely enjoy.”
“Competition thrives when barriers are removed, not when top-down government policies distort free market activity,” the groups wrote, claiming the proposed legislation would negatively impact the services consumers enjoy and “absolutely make consumer technology worse.”
Other bills have been introduced seeking to rein in the outsized market power of tech firms. So far, none have become law, although one, which would increase resources for antitrust enforcers, passed the Senate.
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