As President Obama and Mitt Romney refine their stump speeches and debate their visions for America’s future, antitrust lawyers and corporate executives will and should consider the antitrust policies and agendas of the two presidential candidates. While it seems unlikely that Obama and Romney will directly address antitrust enforcement in this month’s televised debates, their respective positions on the matter will have enormous implications for corporate America over the next four years. This article examines the known or unknown antitrust policies and agendas of Obama and Romney.
Obama
During his 2008 presidential campaign, in a statement prepared in response to an open letter from the American Antitrust Institute, an independent Washington-based nonprofit education, research and advocacy organization, Obama vowed to break from what he dubbed the “weakest record of antitrust enforcement of any administration in the last half-century.” Indeed, not long after Obama was confirmed, Justice Department officials withdrew the Bush administration’s report on monopolization offenses. Christine Varney, then assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, criticized the “passive monitoring of market participants” and declared that “the Obama administration has pledged broad reforms across numerous industries, including banking, health care, energy, telecommunications and transportation,” and that “the Antitrust Division will need to contribute our experience and expertise to these reform efforts.” Varney’s ambitious agenda was captured best when she proclaimed that “antitrust must be among the frontline issues in the government’s broader response to the distressed economy.” Given these early indications, it was widely believed that Obama would spark a significant uptick in antitrust enforcement and merger review.
