The US Chamber of Commerce accused the Federal Trade Commission of a lack of transparency about its competition enforcement in a lawsuit Thursday, stepping up its campaign on behalf of corporate giants against antitrust threats from the Biden administration.
In an unusual move designed to pressure a federal agency whose policies the trade group opposes, the Chamber alleged that the FTC refused to turn over public records about its proceedings, creating a “black-box environment” of uncertainty for business.
The nation’s largest business lobby had sought information under public records law from the antitrust and consumer protection agency about its communications with other regulators regarding the merger between Illumina Inc. and cancer-test startup Grail Inc., along with its practice of counting votes cast by departed commissioners.
The agency denied those requests, as well as another related to FTC Chair Lina Khan’s employment at the agency in 2018.
The FTC “has adamantly refused to provide documents about critical issues of how it operates and makes decisions,” the group said in its complaint, which was filed in federal court in Washington. “Intervention is needed to ensure that the commission’s actions are transparent and accountable to the public as it pursues an aggressive agenda with far-reaching implications for the American economy.”
The FTC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
President Joe Biden has made reinvigorating antitrust a cornerstone of his administration’s economic policy, signing an executive order on promoting competition last summer and selecting two prominent progressives to helm the antitrust agencies -- Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter at the Justice Department and Khan at the FTC.
The suit intensifies the clash between the nation’s biggest business lobby -– whose members include AT&T Inc., Pfizer Inc. and tech stalwarts Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. –- and Khan’s FTC. The trade group, which spent $65 million on lobbying last year, accused the agency of “waging a war on American business” by allegedly manipulating its rules and engaging in political interference.
The FTC filed a suit in 2020 seeking to require Meta to unwind the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp and has been investigating Amazon for potential antitrust violations since 2019. It also sued last year to block Illumina’s acquisition of Grail. An initial decision on that merger by the agency’s in-house court is expected later this year.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.