Competition Corner

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the attorneys general of 31 states and the District of Columbia launched an “Agricultural Competition Partnership” on July 19, 2023, to “enhance competition and protect consumers in food and agricultural markets.” This partnership between USDA and a bipartisan group of states is dedicated to helping states identify and respond to anticompetitive and anti-consumer behavior in food and agricultural markets, including in grocery, meat and poultry processing, and other sectors.

The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) recently added to the pressure on Apple and Google to modify their app store practices. The DOC’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released a 50-page report on February 1, 2023, criticizing the mobile app store model as harmful to developers and consumers and recommending policy changes to reform it.

On July 9, 2021, President Biden issued a comprehensive Executive Order on the promotion of competition in the U.S. economy, focused on specific industries and perceived antitrust challenges currently facing the nation.  The Executive Order calls on more than a dozen federal agencies to take action through 72 different initiatives. 

On July 9, 2021, President Biden issued the Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy and the White House’s Fact Sheet, intended to promote competition and update regulations to combat anticompetitive practices. Included in the Order are several directives to address the Biden administration’s concerns about reduced competition in the agricultural industry, calling for sweeping updates to a key enforcement mechanism in the agricultural industry, the Packers and Stockyard Act of 1921.

President Biden’s Executive Order promoting competition and the corresponding “Fact Sheet” include a number of directives with broad implications for the tech sector. Among other things, the Order seeks to address “excessive market concentration”; the exclusion of market entrants; supracompetitive pricing; exploitation of personal-use data by dominant internet platforms; and the contended charging of excessive rates for broadband, cable television, and other communications services.

President Biden’s July 2021 Executive Order on Competition in the American Economy calls on federal regulators to actively “protect the vibrancy of the American markets for beer, wine, and spirits.” 

What impacts will the sweeping Executive Order on Promoting Competition have on companies? In this episode of Winston & Strawn’s Competition Corner Podcast, Attorneys Molly Donovan, David Dahlquist, Susannah Torpey, and Kevin Goldstein discuss the Order’s directives and recommendations targeting labor markets, the tech sector, and the healthcare and life sciences industries.

President Biden’s July 2021 Executive Order on Competition in the American Economy (the Order) includes a number of directives meant to address concerns over reduced competition in the commercial banking industry. 

On July 9, 2021, President Biden issued the “Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy” (the Order) and the White House’s contemporaneous Fact Sheet with the intent to promote economic competition, rigorously enforce existing antitrust laws, and update regulations to combat practices not prohibited by existing antitrust law that may be used to anticompetitive ends. The Executive Order continues recent years’ bipartisan focus on the healthcare industry, a rare area in which Democrats and Republicans have sought common ground to bring down costs.

President Biden’s Executive Order Promoting Competition in the American Economy targets several industries, among them the transportation industry. President Biden named the Department of Transportation, the Federal Maritime Commission, and the Surface Transportation Board as federal agencies to be involved in his wide-ranging new approach to antitrust enforcement and promoting competition.

On July 9, 2021, President Biden issued the “Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy,” aimed at promoting economic competition and the interests of workers through the enforcement of antitrust laws, and the White House issued a corresponding “Fact Sheet” providing additional details behind the Order.

On July 9, 2021, President Biden signed a comprehensive Executive Order aimed at promoting economic competition across the U.S. economy including through enhanced enforcement of antitrust laws.