Seeking Her White Whale, Lina Khan Aims to Kill Amazon In Its Present Form, Are Conservatives ok with that?
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PUBLIUS SPECIAL GUEST: Robert H. Bork Jr. is the President of the Antitrust Education Project, and recently reissued his father's book, The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself.
In well-placed leaks to the media, Lina Khan is signaling that the depth and breadth of her long-anticipated antitrust lawsuit against Amazon will exceed anything the ambitious, ideology-driven Federal Trade Commission Chair has yet attempted.
Many have attributed this to sheer animus. Khan famously made her reputation as the wannabe intellectual leader of progressive antitrust with her breakthrough attack on the retailer and e-commerce giant in a widely celebrated (and perhaps over-celebrated) law journal note while she was still a student at Yale Law School.
As FTC Chair, Khan has sued Amazon three times before, most recently for allegedly making it hard for consumers to cancel their Amazon Prime membership. This story was detailed in The New York Times, a media outlet that itself is notorious for being hard to cancel. (The Timesforces subscribers to explain why they are canceling and even diverts them to “chats” with representatives. By comparison, cancelling Amazon Prime is a breeze.)
But with this fourth suit, a wide-ranging antitrust case, Lina Khan is not seeking to discomfit Amazon, but to kill the company in its present form. She’s reported to have been personally sharpening questions for investigators and revising the draft of the complaint. She has made it clear that Amazon won’t be allowed to wiggle out with a compromise. This one is to the death.
But why? It’s easy to understand why Captain Ahab in Moby Dick hated the white whale that took his leg. What explains Khan’s long-standing hostility to a popular retailer? Perhaps her case is based more on ambition than animus.
Criticizing Amazon as a law student made her reputation. If she can now kill Amazon as an integrated company, Lina Khan will have made her (whale) bones. She undoubtedly sees this as her legacy – that breaking up Amazon would be in her eyes a landmark achievement akin to breaking up Standard Oil and AT&T.
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PLUG BOOK: The Antitrust Paradox By Judge Robert H. Bork
BIO: Robert H. Bork, Jr., heads the Bork Group, a 18-year-old virtual crisis, litigation, and public affairs agency, which draws from the best, most-experienced, independent communications talent. Mr. Bork has designed strategies for clients in many high-profile cases and policy battles. His experience includes directing the public affairs strategy in critical issues for Eli Lilly, Google, AT&T, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform, to name just a few. He began his career as a journalist as a police reporter before moving to business and economics. As a journalist, he covered international economics at U.S. News and World Report, was managing editor of the quarterly journal Regulation, and worked as a reporter at Forbes, The Detroit Free Press, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Miami Herald. Mr. Bork made the switch to advocacy in 1987 working at the Heritage Foundation, on Capitol Hill as an aide to U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-NH), and as special assistant for U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills. Throughout his career, Mr. Bork has specialized in the development and implementation of communication strategies in crises, litigation, and legal policy. In his many years of experience managing the public environment surrounding high-profile matters, he has worked directly with CEOs, general counsel, and communications executives of major U.S. and international corporations. Mr. Bork's range of experience includes antitrust, product liability, intellectual property, securities fraud, economic espionage, white-collar crime, mergers and acquisitions, First Amendment and employment discrimination. His work has been on behalf of clients ranging from the automobile industry to pharmaceuticals, computers, software, chemicals, railroads, franchising, telecommunications, insurance, health-care, and former manufacturers of lead pigment. In every matter he has worked directly with the client's legal counsel. Mr. Bork graduated from Carleton College with a degree in American history. He was a Herbert J. Davenport Fellow in Business and Economic Journalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He lives in McLean, VA, with his wife (and general counsel) Diana. They have two children.
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Robert H. Bork Jr. is the President of the Antitrust Education Project, and recently reissued his father's book, The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself.