U.S. ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES

The primary U.S. antitrust laws are enforced by two agencies, the Department of Justice (DOJ), through its Antitrust Division, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), through its Bureau of Competition.

AAI's Federal Agencies Data Index - The AAI has compiled data on the two antitrust agencies, including budget, staff, and workload information.

FTC's Plain English Guide to the Antitrust Laws - This e-booklet from the Federal Trade Com'n is a good introduction to antitrust for the public. Clicking the section captioned "An Antitust Primer" gets you a brief description of the major statutes. The booklet also explains how antitrust laws can be violated, answers frequently asked questions about potential violations, describes how to help keep markets competitive, and tells where to find more information about the antitrust laws.

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division - The DOJ Antitrust Division web site offers access to press releases, antitrust guidelines, congressional testimony, appellate briefs, helpful directories and links, and more.

DOJ Antitrust Guidelines - DOJ issues its Antitrust Guidelines to help make businesses and consumers aware of the agency's enforcement policies in various areas of commerce. Guidelines are available on Agriculture, Health Care, International Conduct, Joint Ventures, and Criminal Liability. The joint DOJ/FTC merger policy statement is linked separately immediately below.

An Antitrust Primer for Federal Law Enforcement Personnel (08/2003) This DOJ Primer was written "to provide federal law enforcement personnel with a quick overview of antitrust conspiracies that constitute felony violations of federal law." It discusses the hallmarks of price fixing, bid rigging, and market allocation agreements, in order to "dispel the commonly-held notion that such criminal antitrust conspiracies can be proven only by sophisticated economic analysis." Topics include proving a conspiracy, sources of investigative leads, interaction with other criminal violations, use of covert methods to investigate, and prosecution of international cartels.

Statutes enforced by the Division Part A of this 99-page divisional manual (pdf-formatted) contains the text of statutes enforced by the Antitrust Division. Part B of the manual (scroll to page 49 et seq) contains descriptions of statutes related to the enforcement of the antitrust laws by the DOJ and FTC, including related criminal offenses for similar conduct, laws to protect the integrity of the prosecutorial process, procedural matters (such as witness immunity, statutes of limitations), witness and victim rights, and sentencing.

Disaster Recovery and Antitrust This page and the linking materials, from DOJ's Antitrust Division, explain how to identify anticompetitive conduct that occurs after a natural disaster and how to report possible violations. The page also links to related resources on hurricanes as well as bid rigging, price-fixing and market allocation in post-disaster rebuilding projects.

Antitrust Division Phone Listings

Antitrust Division Sections and Field Offices/Contact Information

Federal Trade Commission This user-friendly site is filled with useful information on the FTC's competition and consumer protection activities and policies. It provides press releases, copies of speeches, advisory opinions and policy statements, Commission actions (e.g, petitions, filings, decisions), countless consumer brochures, rulemaking records, and links to other federal sites. Click here to reach the FTC News Room.

FTC Antitrust/Competition Page - includes an Antitrust Menu and links to current special activities within the Commission's Bureau of Competition.

Statutes Enforced or Administered by the FTC

Formal Actions of the FTC - This FTC Page offers links to Com'n formal actions, such as its adjudicatory opinions and (since 1996), press releases, Rules and Guides, Advisory Opinions, Requests for Public Comment, and Rulemakings.

FTC Bureau of Economics - The Bureau of Economics helps the FTC evaluate the economic impact of its actions. It also analyzes the impact of government regulation on competition and consumers, providing analyses of market through formal reports and working papers, as well as advocacy filings.

Staff Report on the Petroleum Industry (2004) Entitled "The Petroleum Industry: Mergers, Structural Change, And Antitrust Enforcement: A Report of the Staff of the Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Economics," (August 2004) this report presents a detailed overview of structural changes in the petroleum industry and describes Commission law enforcement activities related to petroleum industry mergers.

FTC Staff Contact Listing - Alphabetic listing of BC and BE staffers, with phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Joint DOJ/FTC Horizontal Merger Guidelines - The DOJ/FTC Merger Guidelines outline the joint enforcement policy of the two federal agencies responsible for enforcing federal anti-merger laws, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, concerning horizontal acquisitions and mergers.

FTC v. Polygram Holding Corp et al. (Docket 9298, July 28, 2003) In this important decision, the FTC upheld charges that several subsidiaries of Vivendi Universal, S.A. illegally agreed with Warner Communications Inc. to restrict competition for audio and video products featuring "The Three Tenors" - Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti. In its 61-page opinion, authored by Chairman Timothy J. Muris, the Commission ruled that PolyGram Holding, Inc. (a predecessor to Vivendi) improperly agreed with Warner to curb discounting and advertising to boost sales of recordings that the two companies jointly had distributed based on the tenors’ concert in Paris during the 1998 soccer World Cup.

As noted in a detailed press release, Chairman Muris emphasized that "[n]o analytical exercise is more important to U.S. competition policy than defining the bounds of acceptable cooperation between direct rivals." Therefore, the opinion gives an extensive history and discussion of the analysis appropriate in determining the legality of joint competitor conduct. The Polygram joint venture was found here to have enganged in inherently suspect restrictions on pricing and advertising that clearly harmed competition.

DOJ Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines - Although non-horizontal mergers are less likely than horizontal mergers to create competitive problems, they are not invariably innocuous. This section describes the principal theories under which the DOJ or FTC are likely to challenge non-horizontal mergers -- e.g., perceived potential competitioon, actual potential comeptition, barriers to entry, the need for two-level entry.

FTC Report on Balancing Competition and Patent Policy This press release describes the Federal Trade Commission Report To Promote Innovation: The Proper Balance of Competition and Patent Law and Policy, which was issued on October 28, 2003. The 315-page Report [pdf 2.28MB] is available here, and its Executive Summary [PDF 149KB] here. As the press release explains, the Report focuses on "how to promote innovation by finding the proper balance of competition and patent law and policy. Although both competition in markets and patents for inventors can work together to foster innovation, the report states that each policy requires a proper balance with the other to do so."

Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition - This is a major joint FTC/DOJ Report, which culminates a two-year project. It "reviews the role of competition and provides recommendations to improve the balance between competition and regulation in health care. The report provides significant recommendations and observations on a variety of topics, including the availability of information regarding the price and quality of health-care services; cross-subsidies; physician collective bargaining; insurance mandates; hospital merger analysis; managed care organizations’ bargaining power; and hospital group purchasing organizations." (July 23, 2004; Press Release; Executive Summary)

The State of Federal Antitrust Enforcement (2001) - This 44-page Report was issued by the Task Force on the Federal Antitrust Agencies of the American Bar Aassociation's Section of Antitrust Law.

PGFM Antitrust Bulletin - Produced by the antitrust section of Powell Goldstein Frazer & Murphy LLP, this monthly newsletter contains commentary and information on the antitrust and competition activities of DOJ and FTC, including, e.g., ongoing investigations and litigation, compliance and merger-notification matters, and important policy statements and trends.

Evolution of U.S. Enforcement Norms FTC General Counsel William B. Kovacic wrote this detailed speech, entitled The Modern Evolution of U.S. Competition Policy Enforcement Norms, to debunk the popular "pendulum narrative" description of the U.S. antitrust experience since 1960, in which federal enforcement policy goes from too hot to too cold to just right. Kovacic says "It is bad enough that the narrative distorts actual enforcement experience to accentuate the pendulum's movements. Worse, by obscuring the actual path of policy, the pendulum narrative impedes our understanding of how federal antitrust enforcement has developed and of what antitrust agencies must do to improve the quality of competition policy in the future."

How History Informs Practice - Understanding the Development of Modern U.S. Competition Policy Prepared Remarks of Timothy J. Muris Before American Bar Association, Antitrust Section Fall Forum, Washington, DC, November 19, 2003. In presenting a review of enforcement trends over the past 40 years, FTC Chairman Muris stated that specific lessons can be derived from "a more careful examination of modern enforcement activity," and that "these lessons can improve our understanding about how to formulate sensible policies." It is an "error for an antitrust agency [to ignore] developments in economic learning and industry conditions that undermine enforcement programs," he said.

The Antitrust Modernization Commission website aims to "provide the public with easy access to information about the Commission. The website provides background information about the Commission and contains Commission documents for public viewing."