Federal Court Protects Private Equity from Antitrust Claims

A federal court in Houston made a good call that protects a sizable number of private investors and the economic growth they create.

In an antitrust case against U.S. Anesthesia Partners (USAP), Lina Khan’s ever-inventive FTC also targeted a private equity firm, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe.

Apple Litigator Walsh Mauls DOJ in Motion to Dismiss

Though not as flashy as FTC Chair Lina Khan, Department of Justice antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter is just as anxious as his young colleague to use regulatory power and lawfare to expand antitrust law to control lawful businesses.

How Lina Khan Just Crowned Herself

There is always a dramatic moment when an aspiring despot gets irritated by the niceties of tradition and law and just gets on with it. Caesar displayed his true colors – purple – when he refused to rise before the Roman Senate that had come to honor him. Napoleon grabbed his crown, as agreed to by a cowed Pope Pius VII, and crowned himself l’empereur.

Lina Khan’s Magical Thinking in a House Hearing

Lina Khan went before the House Appropriations Committee this morning to appeal for about a 25-percent increase in the $425 million budget of the Federal Trade Commission that she chairs. The math is simple, she told the committee. For every dollar that FTC spends, it delivers $14 to the economy in consumer benefits.

Biden’s Political Need for an Antitrust Orgy

When JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in a recent Wall Street Journal podcast that that “the consumer is in pretty good shape” because “housing prices are up, stock prices are up, jobs are plentiful,” he inherited the digital whirlwind.

Once Again: Is Lina Khan Winning by Losing?

J. Howard Beales III, former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, and Timothy J. Muris, former Federal Trade Commission chairman, take Lina Khan to task in The Wall Street Journal for bad management, poor strategy, and disregard for norms.

FTC’s “Avant Garde” Antitrust

Jeffrey Oliver of Baker Botts LLP told Bloomberg that FTC’s bar on Scott Sheffield, founder of Pioneer, from serving on the board of its merged company with ExxonMobil is “avant garde antitrust.”

If Only Portraits Could Talk

In a recent talk at Yale Law School, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan noted: “I see the portrait of Robert Bork is still up there.” Note the word “still.” After that observation began an exchange with faculty and students that showed that in the minds of many Yale law scholars, Robert Bork is no longer there at all.

The Khan Cleaver Strikes Again

The move by the Democratic majority on the Federal Trade Commission to outlaw all noncompete agreements that forbid job switching is yet another example of Chair Lina Khan’s supreme confidence in her brand of medicine. Whenever delicate surgery is required she elbows the specialists aside and takes a meat cleaver to the problem.

“Who’s the Octopus Now?”

Leave to economic historian Amity Shlaes to put our 21st century’s version of class warfare into historical context.