CDR: US State AGs Flex Their Antitrust Enforcement Muscles

Shifting federal priorities have seen states step into the gap to tackle major antitrust enforcement issues across the US. O’Melveny partner Lauren Weinstein told CDR that she has seen several key trends which have allowed the offices of the state attorneys general to “punch above their weight class” in antitrust enforcement. Past administrations have each taken their own approach to antitrust enforcement. Weinstein notes that the Obama administration was not highly active on significant competition matters, and that while the first Trump administration saw a spate of Big Tech litigations that “the administration does not often get credit for”, activity “really picked up” under President Biden, led by “gung-ho” enforcers including Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter: “The Biden administration learned some lessons from the Obama administration’s antitrust priorities [and] what some perceived to be lax enforcement.”

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