Skip to main content

Antitrust Reform

September 08, 2022

At The Hill, Prof. Christopher S. Yoo urges Congress to not allow “the heat of the ‘techlash’ moment” to guide antitrust reform decisions.

Christopher S. Yoo, John H. Chestnut Professor of Law, Communication, and Computer & Information Science, recently wrote “When big was not bad: Lessons from Congress’s decisions not to enact antitrust reform” at The Hill.

From The Hill:

One of the most important decisions facing Congress as it returns from its recess is whether to enact legislation that would impose antitrust liability on large companies without requiring any showing of wrongful conduct. Members evaluating these proposals should remember that Congress has rejected similar efforts in the past. Prominent examples include the Concentrated Industries Act initiated by Lyndon Johnson to bolster his later-abandoned presidential reelection campaign, the Industrial Reorganization Act, first introduced by Philip Hart in 1972, and the congressional inquiry recommended by the Carter administration.

All of them would have found companies in violation of the antitrust laws simply for being persistently large. None was enacted into law for reasons that still resonate today… .

Yoo, Founding Director of the Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition (CTIC), has emerged as one of the world’s leading authorities on law and technology. One of the most cited scholars in administrative and regulatory law as well as intellectual property, he has authored five books and over 100 scholarly works.

Read Yoo’s full piece at The Hill.