Open Markets Institute

Proud to be a part of the Digital Merger Watch network, which is more necessary than ever with Big Tech poised to control artificial intelligence as they have the Digital Age. If we brought greater competition and guardrails to digital platforms, we'd see safer, more innovative online spaces with opportunities for more people to benefit from their contributions, including journalists, creators, and anyone who shares their data online. That's what this work is all about. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eqith9Dd

I am a proud alumnus of the FTC, which has protected Americans from corporate power and abuse for over 100 years. Today's action defies direct Supreme Court precedent, contravenes the unambiguous will of Congress, and elevates party politics above consumers, workers, and small businesses. There is no valid justification, legal or otherwise, to remove these two excellent Commissioners. The American public deserves better.

We're standing by the notion that Donald Trump does not have the authority to fire Democratically-appointed FTC Commissioners Bedoya and Slaughter. Our statement (from ED Barry Lynn) on the implications of Trump's attempt even to try to remove them: “In America today, private monopoly poses one of the greatest domestic threats to democracy and individual liberty since the Civil War. It is a threat to our freedom to speak, our freedom of the press, and our freedom to live our own lives as we alone choose. It is a threat, in short, to every fundamental promise of the American Republic.? For the last several years, the bipartisan Federal Trade Commission in Washington led much of the fight against this terrifying array of political and economic threats. FTC commissioners from both parties fought on behalf of the American people and American democracy. President Trump’s choice to chair the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, appeared poised to build on this work, at least in part.? But President Trump’s illegal, unconstitutional attempt today to fire the Democratic Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya makes abundantly clear that he is not interested in protecting the liberty and economic wellbeing of the American people and American business, or the security and safety of the United States itself. Instead, it appears he has chosen to put the interests of the oligarch and all-powerful corporation first, and the interests of every other American last. We call first on President Trump to immediately reverse this deeply unwise and extravagantly counterproductive decision. Failing that we call on Congress to stand up in defense of the laws and institutions it created – using the powers established by the American people in the Constitution. We also call on the Courts to immediately put a halt to this attack on America’s free institutions and entire way of life.”?

The Open Markets Institute recently submitted comments on the UK government's draft strategic steer to the Competition and Markets Authority. It is right that competition policy and enforcement contribute to the government's overall policy objectives, including promoting economic growth (which ultimately depends on fair and open markets). However, these objectives should not be limited to growth but also reflect other public interest considerations which robust competition enforcement can support, including economic resilience, media plurality, workers' rights and a flourishing democracy. At the same time, it is essential that the CMA's independence – from both government and industry – is protected to ensure that decisions are made on the basis of objective evidence rather than self-interested corporate lobbying or short-term political priorities. The strategic steer's emphasis on a more "collaborative" relationship between the CMA and business is problematic in this regard. Read our full submission here.

"Instead of picking between Big Tech and private utilities to lead, we should put public power at the forefront of a national decarbonization program...As FDR articulated in 1932, public power can function as a yardstick and competitively pressure private utilities to do better on rates, reliability, and decarbonization, especially if more states and cities start to view public control as a superior alternative to investor ownership." READ more from Sandeep Vaheesan in The American Prospect: https://lnkd.in/eTvnYEvf

Michelle Nie is our exceptional EU tech policy fellow. Following her for the latest on competition, innovation, tech and AI. More from Michelle below.

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Innovation should be in the public's interest. So too should regulation. We're thinking through both when we write about how best to curtail big tech monopoly power. More from our Europe and Transatlantic Partnership director below...

Europe needs to stand firm against the brazen efforts by Big Tech and the US government to overthrow its digital sovereignty. In a new report by Georg Emil Riekeles at the European Policy Centre, Dr. Pencho Kuzev at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and me at the Open Markets Institute, we argue that caving into Trump and Zuckerberg's threats would represent "not only a huge tactical blunder but also a dangerous surrender of Europe's fundamental values". Instead of watering down tech enforcement as a bargaining chip with Trump, the EU should forge ahead with existing investigations while standing ready to double down with tougher measures in response to U.S. retaliation – including banning non-compliant platforms from accessing the EU market, breaking up tech monopolies, and making use of the powerful new Anti-Coercion Instrument (which among other things allows the Commission to revoke intellectual property rights and ban specific companies from public procurement in response to foreign economic coercion). The EU should also reinforce its overall approach to enforcement through six key actions, namely: (1) understanding Big Tech's dominance as an existential threat to democracy, security and sovereignty (2) breaking down institutional silos to ensure a joined-up approach to enforcement (3) drastically scaling up enforcement resources, including through new levies on Big Tech corporations (4) mobilising the considerable expertise of civil society, including through the establishment of formal collaboration structures (5) building political commitment across the EU's institutions, including through a new committee in the European Parliament (6) joining forces with other nations facing US tech coercion and interference, including Canada, Australia, the UK, Brazil and Japan. Many thanks to the Financial Times for extensively covering our report in their Europe Express newsletter this morning: https://lnkd.in/df4fEWYG Andreas Schwab Stéphanie Yon-Courtin René Repasi Damian Boeselager Alexandra Geese Marietje Schaake Anu Bradford Agustín Reyna Helena Malikova Filomena Chirico Werner Stengg Kai Zenner Johnny Ryan Giorgos Verdi Sebastiano Toffaletti Mark Dempsey Nicholas Shaxson Margarida Silva Tanya O'Carroll Frederike Kaltheuner Ulrich Mueller