ICLE Welcomes DOJ and FTC Efforts to Cut Anticompetitive Regulations
PORTLAND, Ore. (May 28, 2025) — The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) submitted comments yesterday to separate U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) initiatives that seek to reform or eliminate anticompetitive regulations at both the state and federal levels.
The ICLE comments note that the efforts, launched in the wake of President Donald Trump’s April 9 executive order on reducing anticompetitive regulatory barriers, could reinvigorate the agencies’ longstanding program of competition advocacy with federal and state policymakers, and with economic research that directly informs such advocacy.
ICLE Director of Innovation Policy Kristian Stout offered the following statement regarding the comments he submitted alongside ICLE fellow scholars:
The DOJ and FTC should take this opportunity to reorient their focus toward sound economic principles and the consumer welfare standard. They should uphold their historic role in competition advocacy, fostering an environment where innovation, efficiency, and consumer choice produce favorable economic outcomes. Our analysis reveals, unsurprisingly, that numerous federal and state laws create significant barriers to competition, ultimately harming consumers, workers, and businesses. From restrictive occupational licensing to antitrust exemptions that shield cartels, government actions often protect incumbents over the public good. The agencies should use these reviews to ensure the law itself doesn’t become a source for legal plunder.
Policy Recommendations
- Refocus on the Consumer Welfare Standard: The FTC and DOJ should prioritize the consumer welfare standard in antitrust enforcement, focusing on price and output effects.
- Eliminate Federal and State Certificates of Convenience and Necessity (CCNs): CCNs create barriers to market entry, protecting incumbents and hindering competition. The recommendation is to remove these requirements at both federal and state levels to foster more competitive markets.
- Eliminate or Scale Back Occupational-Licensing Laws: Many licensing requirements are overly broad and restrict competition without providing commensurate consumer benefits. The recommendation is to review and eliminate unnecessary licenses, adopt a “least-restrictive regulation” approach, and enhance interstate mobility for licensed professionals.
- Re-Evaluate and Curtail Antitrust Exemptions: Numerous sector-specific antitrust exemptions permit anticompetitive conduct. The recommendation is to re-evaluate and eliminate these exemptions to promote consumer welfare, allocative efficiency, and dynamic competition.
- Eliminate Prevailing-Wage Laws and Project Labor Agreements (PLAs): These regulations distort construction labor markets, inflate costs, and create barriers to market entry. The recommendation is to eliminate them to allow for more efficient labor markets.
- Rescind the FTC’s Noncompete-Agreements Rule: The FTC’s ban on noncompete agreements is overly broad and lacks sound economic justification. The recommendation is to rescind this rule.
- Review and Revise DOJ/FTC Merger Guidelines: The 2023 Merger Guidelines represent a departure from established antitrust principles and should be reviewed and revised.
- Review COPPA Rules: The FTC should reconsider the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule, specifically the decision to include standalone persistent identifiers in the definition of “personal information.”
The full comments can be downloaded here. To schedule an interview with Kristian about these comments, contact Jim Fellinger at [email protected].
About ICLE
The International Center for Law & Economics is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center working with a roster of more than eighty academic affiliates and research centers from around the globe. ICLE scholars promote the use of law and economics methodologies to inform public policy debates.