Senator Questions Two Agencies' Investigations of Big Tech Firms

By Brent Kendall

WASHINGTON -- Senators on Tuesday questioned how the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are orchestrating major antitrust reviews of dominant tech companies, amid evidence that the two agencies are at odds.

"I have been critical of the fact that we have two federal agencies responsible for civil antitrust enforcement," Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) told Justice Department antitrust chief Makan Delrahim and FTC Chairman Joe Simons during an oversight hearing. "And, I have to say, your two agencies have done a remarkable job in recent months of making my points."

The Justice Department and FTC share U.S. antitrust authority and sometimes have to negotiate which agency will handle an investigation. Both are interested in exploring whether the nation's most powerful tech companies are unlawfully suppressing competition.

The two privately have been at loggerheads over investigating Facebook Inc., The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The FTC is probing the social media giant on a handful of issues, including the company's past acquisitions of up-and-coming tech firms. The Justice Department wants to scrutinize other company practices, and each agency thinks the other is breaking a jurisdictional arrangement they reached in July.

Mr. Lee, who heads the Senate antitrust subcommittee that convened Tuesday's hearing, said splitting a monopolization probe between two sets of antitrust enforcers made no sense. "Doing so simply looks like both agencies want to have the same piece of the same pie at the same time," he said.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the panel, said she was less focused on agency turf battles than on the bigger picture, "which is how we're going to take on the monopoly issues of our time." She expressed concern that European enforcers have long been more active on tech competition issues than the U.S.

Messrs. Simons and Delrahim both acknowledged to the panel that there have been instances where their negotiating process has broken down.

The men, under public pressure to take on big tech firms, earlier this year negotiated arrangements that cleared the Justice Department to investigate Alphabet Inc.'s Google for possible monopolistic tactics and also gave the department jurisdiction over Apple Inc. for similar issues. The FTC secured for itself the right to explore monopolization questions involving Facebook and Amazon.com Inc.

Interagency talks over Facebook later became more complicated. The Justice Department in late July announced it would undertake a broad review of online platforms including the social media giant, raising the prospect that both agencies could end up bringing a case against the same company.

Write to Brent Kendall at brent.kendall@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 17, 2019 16:09 ET (20:09 GMT)

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