Insights

Orange County – December 8, 2021: The Orange County Coalition for Diversity in the Law (OCCDL) has named Crowell & Moring’s Orange County Office as a 2021 “Top Diverse Legal Organization for DEI in OC” and named Eric Fanchiang and Matthew Troncali to its list of 2021 “Top Young Diverse Lawyers in OC.” The coalition honors legal organizations and young diverse attorneys who provide excellent legal services and work to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Orange County community.

On January 11, 2022, District Judge James Boasberg (D.D.C) largely denied Facebook’smotion to dismiss an amended complaint filed by the FTC. The FTC sued Facebook in December 2020 under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act, which authorizes the FTC to seek an injunction against an entity that “is violating” or “is about to violate” any provision of law enforced by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC alleges that Facebook has acted unlawfully to maintain its monopoly in an alleged Personal Social Networking market in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which is alleged to constitute an unfair method of competition under Section 5 of the FTC Act. In June 2021, Judge Boasberg granted Facebook’s initial motion to dismiss, but allowed the FTC to file an amended complaint, and the FTC did so in August 2021. 

On October 6, 2020, the majority staff of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law released a long-awaited report on the state of competition in digital markets titled Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets, Majority Staff Report and Recommendations (“Staff Report”). The 450-page Staff Report is the capstone of a year-plus investigation of digital markets, the conduct of the largest online companies, and the effectiveness of current antitrust laws and enforcement. The Staff Report lodges heavy criticism of the state of competition in the digital economy and antitrust enforcement, and recommends an array of legislative proposals—including specific reforms to address anticompetitive conduct in digital markets, as well as strengthening merger and monopolization enforcement and significant revisions to the antitrust laws generally—that would arguably represent the largest overhaul of antitrust law and enforcement in history, not just in digital markets but across all industries. A group of Republican Subcommittee members issued a separate report, The Third Way: Antitrust Enforcement in Big Tech, which supports bipartisan efforts to reform antitrust enforcement to address competitive harm in digital markets, but disagrees with some of the majority staff's recommended proposals.