Sam Bowman on Congressional Antitrust Bills

Law360 – ICLE Director of Competition Policy Sam Bowman was quoted by Law360 in a story previewing competition and antitrust policy in 2022. The full story is available (behind a subscriber firewall) here.

Sam Bowman, director of competition policy at the International Center for Law & Economics, told Law360 that differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill make its potential impact even more ambiguous. But, he said, the legislation would depart significantly from existing U.S. antitrust by placing the “wellbeing of competitors over the wellbeing of consumers.”

“The bill, in an important way, emulates the kind of European approach which is much more concerned with the abuse of dominant positions and dominant companies harming competitors, rather than harming consumers,” Bowman told Law360.

In addition to forcing changes to the way the platforms work now, Bowman said, the bill runs the risk of dampening innovation, since companies will have to think twice about trying new things that could
potentially run afoul of the bill and expose them to penalties based on a percentage of their U.S. revenue.

“You may get a really significant chilling effect where it’s just not worth bothering,” he said.