Key Accomplishments of Lina Khan's Federal Trade Commission
Lina Khan was Chair of the FTC under President Biden and ushered in a new age of trustbusting. This article outline's the FTC's many accomplishments from the past 4 years.
Since about the 2008 bailouts there’s been criticism, mostly from people on “the left” that “capitalism is broken” or maybe that capitalism isn’t broken but capitalism is the problem, the cause of all our problems.
I think that pointing at problems and saying that it’s “capitalism’s fault” shows a lack of willingness to think hard about commerce and markets, about how the free market system should work. A fair economy, a free economy takes thought, laws, regulation and enforcement. Lina Khan, the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under President Biden, advanced the concept and experience of freedom for everyday Americans by going after corporations that infringed upon American’s freedom1.
In this post we’ll review the FTC’s actions over the past four years. From breaking up monopolies and blocking predatory mergers to protecting our privacy and standing up for workers' rights, Lina Khan and the FTC has been working for the freedom of ordinary Americans.
The FTC Started Enforcing the Law Again
The first and potentially most lasting way Lina Khan and the FTC made the economy more decentralized was by dusting off the antitrust laws Congress passed to reign in corporate power. Some of these laws though died under Reagan through lack of enforcement. This passive approach to antitrust enforcement begun in the 1980s with the rise of the Chicago School of antitrust thought and continued under Clinton, Bush and Obama presidencies, benefiting the wealthiest Americans and facilitated concentration in many economic sectors from hospitals to airlines to tech companies.
The FTC under Biden brought cases strengthening the three main antitrust laws by winning cases and setting precedent. The laws the FTC enforced are the Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton Act of 1914 and, most controversially, the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936.
The Sherman Act
The Sherman Act is the first and main law against monopolies. It’s a broad law that outlaws unreasonable restraint of trade or harm to competition. Some “per se” violations of the Sherman Act that clearly harm competition are price fixing, agreements to divide markets and bid rigging
The Sherman Act was passed as a response to powerful trusts running the American economy for private benefit like John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, Andrew Carnegie’s Carnegie Steel and J.P. Morgan’s finance empire. These companies concentrated capital in a shocking new way that endangered Americans’ freedom. Congress acted2 to protect the free market system and break the trusts up.
Here are some precedents the FTC set to strengthen the Sherman Act:
In the FTC v. Meta case the court recognized that when a monopolist buys a nascent competitor, this should be presumed illegal. This will be especially relevant in the case of determining if Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp were illegal.
In FTC v. U.S. Anesthesia Partners established that Section 2 of the Sherman Act was a viable means for challenging serial acquisitions. This was for a case where a private equity firm on Park Avenue, New York City bought up all the anesthesiologist practices in Texas so they could overcharge Texans to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
FTC v. Amazon showed that Section 2 of the Sherman Act can be applied to digital markets via feedback loops and network effects. This helped shape markets in another monopolization case brought by Epic Games v. Google, which Google lost.
In FTC v. John Deere the FTC sued to give farmers the right to repair their own tractors, advancing Section 2 of the Sherman Act as a viable means of fighting these unjust right to repair restrictions.
The Clayton Act
The Clayton Act was passed to clarify and patch holes in the Sherman Act, especially with mergers and acquisitions. Since the Sherman Act outlawed cartels that restrain trade, companies began to merge like crazy after the act was passed. Congress followed up by passing the Clayton Act to outlaw mergers that lessen competition and create monopolies. The Clayton Act also bans price discrimination, charging different prices to different people for the same good.
For the past 50 years the FTC has only blocked “horizontal mergers” where parties directly compete with each other. The last vertical merger to be blocked prior to Lina Khan was when Ford Motor Company tried to buy an auto parts manufacturer in 1972.
Here are ways Khan and the FTC advanced the Clayton Act:
The FTC successfully blocked big companies from buying their suppliers or distributors, called vertical mergers.
Vertical mergers blocked by the FTC in the past four years:
Sued to block Microsoft, maker of the Xbox game platform from buying game producer Activision for $69 billion.
Blocked semiconductor supplier Nvidia from buying semiconductor designer Arm for $40 billion, resulting in Arm’s IPO — the biggest one of the year.
Blocked loan technology provider Intercontinental Exchange from buying Black Knight for $13.1 billion. If these two mortgage technology firms had combined they would have controlled the Loan Origination System (LOS) that processes half of America’s residential mortgages and the dominant downstream Product Pricing and Eligibility (PPE) that controls 40% of residential American mortgages.
Blocked Illumina biotech sequencing platform from buying Grail biotechnology firm for $7.1 billion.
Blocked Lockheed Martin, the nation’s dominant defense contractor, from buying the last independent U.S. missile propulsion provider for $4.4 billion. This would have resulted in worse quality, more government expense and longer timelines for key defense projects, not to mention a reduced American ability to produce cruise missiles — which would be very important in the event that America decides to defend Taiwan from Chinese invasion.
Stopped Tempur Sealy from buying Mattress Firm for $4 billion which would have combined the nation’s largest mattress supplier with the nation’s largest mattress retailer.
The FTC reinforced a rule that says if a merger would give one company more than 30% of a market, it's probably illegal. This helped stop mergers like Kroger buying Albertsons, which would have created a huge grocery store chain that could raise prices on consumers.
The Robinson-Patman Act
The Robinson-Patman Act stops companies from charging different prices to different customers unfairly.
Large retailers like Walmart can use their market power to squeeze suppliers into conceding big discounts. Then Walmart can offer the same items for lower prices, increasing their market power and making it difficult or impossible for small businesses to compete. Because of lax enforcement this pattern has become a feature of our economy, leading to greater corporate consolidation.
The last Robinson-Patman case the FTC brought prior to Lina Kahn’s tenure was against McCormick spices in 2000 but they settled. The last litigated Robinson-Patman case the agency fought for was back in 1988. The Department of Justice (DOJ) hasn’t pursued a Robinson-Patman case since the 1970s.
The FTC brought Robinson-Patman back to life by filing a price discrimination case against a wine and spirits distributor named Southern Glazer's, one of the top 10 largest private companies in the United States and Pepsi. These beverage companies charge small businesses much higher prices than they do to big chain stores. So, for example, they charge a mom-and-pop store $10 for something while charging Walmart $5 for the same item.
Other Large Wins by the FTC
Here are some other wins for the FTC and Americans that believe in a decentralized economy.
Blocked a $24 billion merger between Kroger and Albertsons which would have been the largest supermarket merger in U.S. history, charging that it would raise grocery prices for millions of Americans and result in lower wages and worse conditions for hundreds of thousands of unionized workers.
Secured a consent order to allow Amgen’s $27 billion acquisition of Horizon go through, prohibiting Amgen from leveraging its portfolio of blockbuster drugs in ways that could raise prices for Horizon’s thyroid eye disease and chronic refractory gout medication
Blocked an $8.5 billion fashion house merger between Tapestry and Capri that would have combined Coach, Kate Spade, Stuart Weitzman, Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo and Versace into one company.
Other FTC Accomplishments from 2021 to 2025
The FTC, though small for a government agency and outgunned by monopolies with unlimited resources to fight them had significant wins. These actions make the economy more fair and capitalism work for everyday Americans.
PROTECTED CONSUMERS & MADE MARKETS MORE FAIR
Banned junk fees.
Sued Meta for a monopoly in personal social networking, focusing on Facebook’s “buy or bury” strategy and its acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp.
Made a “click to cancel” rule so that it has to be as easy to cancel as it is to sign up (looking at you Planet Fitness)
Reduced price of inhalers from $500 in some cases to $35 by going improper use of patents by mafia-like pharmaceutical companies.
Sued and won cases against Amazon, Epic Games, GrubHub, H&R Block, Intuit, Adobe, Vonage and Credit Karma for various tricks and deceptive practices that made consumers pay more. Returned hundreds of millions of dollars to American consumers that were victims of these practices.
Blocked a pharmaceutical company, Sanofi, that monopolized a drug and charged $750k from buying a competitor that was introducing lower cost care.
Blocked hospital mergers that would have raised prices, reduced competition, squeezed workers and facilitated further consolidation.
DATA PRIVACY AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
Banned General Motors from sharing drivers' precise location and driving behavior without their consent. This was the first FTC action for regulating connected cars.
Banned data brokers from selling consumers’ geolocation data for advertising. This was being used to track people’s visits to reproductive health clinics, places of worship and rehab facilities.
Banned health technology companies like GoodRx, Premom, Flo, Monument, Cerebral and BetterHelp from selling health information
Won the largest-ever privacy case judgment against Avast for selling users' browsing data, returning $16.5 million to consumers.
Prohibited companies from storing people’s personal data longer than necessary and punished companies for data breaches. This included actions against Marriot Hotels, home security companies like Verkada and Ring, a public software company worth billions called Blackbaud, alcohol marketplace Drizly, retailer CafePress and web hosting company GoDaddy. This sent a firm message to corporate America that lax security practices with consumer data results in consequences.
Fined Twitter for $150 million deceptively using account security data to sell targeted ads. This violated a previous FTC order. Laws are not suggestions3.
PROTECTED CHILDREN
Strengthened a rule to limit companies’ monetizing children’s data, including corporate surveillance in schools.
Sued TikTok for collection data on children under 13 years old without their parent’s consent, enforcing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Fined Epic Games for $275 million, the largest COPPA penalty ever, for collecting children’s data without parental consent. This is in addition to the $245 million in refunds Epic had to pay out for tricking users into making unwanted purchases.
Fined Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft for monetizing data about children without parental consent and violating COPPA.
Prohibited online educational software Edmodo from collecting more personal data from students than necessary after it illegally used kids’ data for advertising and outsourced COPPA compliance to school districts.
WORKERS' RIGHTS
Banned noncompete clauses from employment contracts. Noncompete clauses were used to harm janitors, fast food workers, hair dressers, security guards, bartenders, doctors, nurses and Americans working across all sectors of the economy. Banning noncompetes freed hundreds of thousands of Americans to pursue better, higher paying jobs — a win for the free market and the labor movement at the same time.
Ordered Amazon to pay back $61.7 million in tips that they illegally withheld from 140,000 American delivery drivers.
Sued Care.com for deceiving caregivers about wages and the availability of jobs on it’s site. Care.com had to pay $8.5 million back to their gig workers that take care of the elderly.
Fined Arise Virtual Solutions for false promises to virtual customer experience workers, winning $7 million for them.
Ordered companies like Lyft and Grubhub to be honest about driver earnings
Took action against Handy for luring workers onto its platform with false earnings claims and then charging undisclosed fines and fees, requiring it to pay $2.95 million in refunds to workers.
CREATED MORE FAIRNESS IN THE HOUSING MARKET
Took action against Invitation Homes, a landlord for 80,000 American homes for charging junk fees, withholding security deposits and employing unfair4 eviction practices. This action returned $48 million to renters that were harmed.
Sued Greystar (America’s largest rental apartment operator and my former landlord) for hidden fees. We had to move out of our old place because of required fees that weren’t advertised to us, so I can personally attest to this malfeasance by Greystar.
Fined TransUnion $15 million for inaccurate eviction records that showed up on people’s background checks, making it more difficult for them to obtain housing or jobs.
PROTECTED SMALL BUSINESSES
Sued Amazon for being a monopoly. The suit alleges that Amazon stopped rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degraded quality for shoppers, overcharged sellers, stifled innovation, and prevented rivals from competing against Amazon.
Ordered Mastercard to stop illegally blocking merchants from routing debit card payments through its payment network, raising costs for small businesses.
Banned false "Made in USA" labels that were hurting American small businesses. This included a $3.7 million fine against Williams-Sonoma for falsely saying certain products were made in America.
Won $20.3 million judgment against a predatory merchant cash advance operation that cheated small businesses and threatened them with violence.
Banned fake reviews.
Reinvigorated enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act, which prohibits price discrimination that squeezes independent retailers, by suing Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, the largest U.S. distributor of wine and spirits.
Sued Pepsi for violating the Robinson-Patman Act by favoring larger retailers when providing promotions and services, leading to increased prices on Pepsi products for customers and rivals
ENFORCED RIGHT TO REPAIR
Took action against Weber grills, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and Westinghouse for restricting people’s ability to repair the products they bought from them.
Allowed McDonalds to fix their own McFlurry machines 🍦
Sued John Deere for not allowing farmers to fix their own equipment.
REGULATED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)
Banned Rite Aid from using discriminatory AI facial recognition technologies that wrongly accused innocent people, including children, of shoplifting.
Banned AI-enabled impersonation of government agencies and businesses and AI-generated fake reviews, and extended consumer telemarketing protections to AI-generated calls.
Launched an inquiry and published a report into how partnerships and investments between dominant technology firms and emerging AI providers may risk distorting innovation and undermining competition. The report focused on cloud service providers Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft’s relationships with Artificial Intelligence developers Anthropic and OpenAI.
Filed briefs with DOJ making clear that hotels and residential landlords engaging in algorithmic collusion5 are breaking the law, and that price fixing by algorithm is still illegal price fixing.
Cracked down on companies offering an AI tool to create fake customer reviews, a company claiming to sell “AI lawyer” services, and companies making deceptive earnings claims to customers that AI could help them earn money.
Conducted a public Voice Cloning Challenge to solicit multi-disciplinary solutions to rooting out AI-driven voice cloning that can turbocharge fraud.
Blocked NVIDIA’s acquisition of Arm, which would have been the largest chip merger in history, protecting innovation in the critical semiconductor industry and leading to Arm’s successful IPO — the largest IPO in two years.
A full discussion on whether regulation promotes freedom is beyond the scope of this article, but I’d encourage you to read Trust Busting As Freedom. I can already hear some libertarians screaming at their screens that any rules at all imposed by the government are a restriction of freedom. To that I would disagree and assert that rules and a strong government are actually required for freedom because otherwise humans would delve into a Hobbesian state of nature of all against all.. but now I’m just being nerdy.
The law was signed by IMHO one of most America’s most forgettable Presidents: President Benjamin Harrison.
Attributing this quote to the badass Rohit Chopra who served on the Federal Trade Commission and more recently was head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) where he held companies worth billions accountable for their malfeasance.
FTC Commissioner Alvaro M. Bedoya had some great remarks about the Federal Trade Commission’s Return to Fairness at the Midwest Forum on Fair Markets.
Another great read: Price fixing by algorithm is still price fixing