Why Is Trump’s FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson Continuing Lina Khan’s Socialist Policies?
Trump’s FTC chair Andrew Ferguson is enforcing Biden-era antitrust rules, abandoning the consumer welfare standard and embracing regulations that expand government control over the market...
Why are the 2023 Joint Merger guidelines promulgated by Biden’s Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and Justice Department Antitrust Chief Jonathan Kanter being continued in full by the new Republican, Trump-appointed FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson?
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.
TO BOOK INTERVIEWS EMAIL: sutton.publius@gmail.com or aj.publius@gmail.com
Although I’ve never heard him use the precise term, President Trump’s every statement and action as a free-market advocate leads me to mark him down as an intuitive believer in the consumer welfare standard. This is the doctrine that courts should judge deals and business operations under antitrust laws not according to vague, ever-shifting standards but by their measurable impacts on price, quality, and innovation for the consumer.
After decades of inconsistent standards in judges’ rulings—ranging from protecting inefficient competitors to subjective judgments about how big or small businesses should be—the Supreme Court adopted the hard-and-fast metrics of the consumer welfare standard. They did so in 1979, one year after my father, Judge Robert Bork, gave this standard its fullest definition in his magnum opus, The Antitrust Paradox.
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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.
TO BOOK INTERVIEWS EMAIL: sutton.publius@gmail.com or aj.publius@gmail.com