The massive New Deal sculptures that frame Federal Trade Commission headquarters are both called “Man Controlling Trade.” And according to the Commission’s new Policy Statement Regarding Unfair Methods of Competition Under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, “Three Commissioners Controlling the Economy” appears to now be one of the agency’s guiding principles. The last FTC roundup suggested that winter is coming. This week’s theme: bundle up because, baby, it’s getting cold outside.
By now, you’ve probably seen the statement. Or maybe it’s three statements. There’s the official statement, adopted by a three-to-one vote (Chair Lina Khan and Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, with Commissioner Christine Wilson dissenting); the chair’s statement (joined by Slaughter and Bedoya); and Bedoya’s statement (joined by Khan and Slaughter). Nothing from Slaughter?
As Gus Hurwitz pointed out, the policy statement lacks legal force or precedential value. Its value, if any, is as guidance. There’s probably a point to distinguishing the Commission’s guidance and the separate statements signed by each member of the Commission who voted for the guidance, but I have no idea what it is.
I commend Wilson’s dissenting statement. To cut to the chase: “Unfortunately, instead of providing meaningful guidance to businesses, the Policy Statement announces that the Commission has the authority summarily to condemn essentially any business conduct it finds distasteful.” Other than that, Commissioner Wilson, how did you like the play?
Inspired by the current majority’s penchant for self-citation, I’ll begin by pilfering ICLE’s day-after string of tweets about the new statement:
But wait, there’s more, and more self-reference, including the ICLE issue “brief” that I wrote with Gus Hurwitz.
To recap, the statement expressly disavows the rule of reason, the consumer welfare standard, actual or likely impact on competition or consumers, measurement (or estimation) of harms, and the potential for countervailing efficiencies, at least in the form of net efficiency or a “numerical cost-benefit analysis.”
It’s all supposed to be grounded in the legislative history and case law, but it’s a highly selective reading of the historical record and case law, with a skew to old cases and a number of citations seeming inapt. It’s supposed to add rigor and predictability to FTC enforcement, but it’s hard to see how it could. If actual or likely impact on competition and consumers is supposed to be unwieldy and unpredictable, how does it help to focus on a “tendency” (not necessarily a likelihood) for analogous conduct to affect “competitive conditions,” and thus “consumers, workers, or other market participants”?
Discussion—including trenchant criticism—continues apace. Themes of an enforcement policy unmoored, overreaching, and unpredictable can be found in additional Truth on the Market posts from Dirk Auer, Jonathan Barnett, and Brian Albrecht.
As Jonathan Barnett puts it:
FTC rejected the applicability of the balancing test set forth in the rule of reason (and with it, several decades of case law, agency guidance, and legal and economic scholarship). … In the statement …the agency has now adopted this “just trust us” approach as a permanent operating principle.
Former Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen also emphasizes the broad discretion claimed by the Commission, and its failure to provide specific guidance:
While ostensibly intended to provide such guidance, the new Policy Statement contains few specifics about the particular conduct that the Commission might deem to be unfair, and suggests that the FTC has broad discretion to challenge nearly any conduct with which it disagrees.
No doubt there’s more commentary on the way. But because the statement has no legal force, it’s hard to see how it can be challenged in court until it’s cited by the Commission in an enforcement action or rulemaking. Stay tuned.
There’s much more on the horizon. Axon Enterprises, Inc. v. FTC was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, with questioning from several justices suggesting skepticism about the FTC’s position. As we’ve noted in recent weeks, the Commission has announced a raft of potential competition rulemakings, and new horizontal merger guidelines may be forthcoming. Among other things. We shall see.
Happy Thanksgiving.
