#WorkforceWednesday: NLRB Wants Shuttered Starbucks Stores Reopened, Big Tech Retreats from DEI Programs, and Employers Scrap College Requirements - Employment Law This Week®
Nota Bene Podcast Episode 134: U.S. Q3 Check In: Infrastructure Bill Updates and Big Tech Antitrust with Elizabeth Frazee and Chani Wiggins
Nota Bene Episode 116: Challenging the U.S. Big Tech Antitrust Debate Assumptions: A Deep Dive with Thomas Dillickrath and Bill Margeson
What to Expect from the Biden Administration
Nota Bene Episode 104: European Q4 Check In: Brexit, Digital Platform Regulation, and National Security Regulation with Oliver Heinisch
Nota Bene Episode 68: The Current Antitrust Enforcement Climate in the United States with Capitol Forum Senior Editor Nate Soderstrom
Nota Bene Episode 46: America’s Existential Antitrust Crisis with Thomas Dillickrath
Does anybody remember Napster? Launched in June 1999, the revolutionary peer-to-peer music sharing platform peaked at 80 million music lovers worldwide. It famously fell from greatness into bankruptcy three years later after...more
In the months before the 2024 presidential election, we reported on the stated antitrust agendas of candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Now a few months into the second Trump administration, we review recent...more
Technology was a key focus of this year’s ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting, one of the largest gatherings of antitrust professionals in the world. Over a dozen panels focused on cutting-edge technology issues as it pertains to...more
On Thursday, April 10, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Mark Meador as a Commissioner of the FTC. Previously, it was expected that Meador’s confirmation would lead to significant changes at the FTC, as his presence on the...more
State attorneys general across the U.S. took bold steps in 2024 to address unlawful activities by corporations in several areas, including privacy and data security, financial transparency, children’s internet safety, and...more
Among other significant rulemakings that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized in the waning days of the Biden Administration were 1) an overdraft fees final rule that applies to banks and credit unions...more
COMPETITION - Prior notification of a concentration (Case M.11889 - Amcor / Berry)... Prior notification of a concentration (Case M.11933 - PAI Partners / Motel One)...more
Wednesday, we covered President Trump’s firing of Democratic FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter and explored whether a two-member Commission constitutes a quorum for the agency to take formal action....more
2024 saw a significant increase in the total fines imposed in abuse of dominance cases compared to 2023, reversing a trend of decline in recent years. The rise in fine volumes was spread across all regions of the world, with...more
Digital regulation continues to be at the forefront of regulator concerns, as authorities focus on technology companies through traditional antitrust tools and new digital markets regimes. Further legislation and guidance is...more
Major technology companies and industry groups just responded to the White House’s request for feedback on its AI plan and called for a national framework to prevent fragmented state laws on workplace use and more. The...more
2024 saw a significant increase in overall global fines for antitrust enforcement, with total penalties for the jurisdictions surveyed in our report at USD6.7 billion, over double that of 2023 (USD2.9bn) and substantially...more
Gail Slater was confirmed last week as Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for the Antitrust Division; companies should expect a continuation of many Biden-era approaches, with new cases and priorities to advance the Trump...more
As we look back on 2024, one thing is clear: Antitrust enforcement in the technology sector continued at a steady pace, with global agencies showing no signs of relenting in their scrutiny of Big Tech companies....more
On March 11, 2025, the U.S. Senate confirmed Gail Slater to lead the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. Slater received bipartisan support in her confirmation....more
In recent developments, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has amended its approach in the antitrust case against Alphabet’s Google, refocusing its legal strategy in tackling the perceived monopolistic control exerted by...more
The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the UK Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) have issued a joint feedback statement on the usage and impact of big tech and digital wallets (FS25/1). The feedback statement was...more
Good Sunday morning from Seattle . . . Our Online Travel Update for the week ending Friday, February 28, 2025, is below. This week’s Update features a variety of stories from a variety of sources, including some new sources....more
On February 25, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a confirmation hearing for Michael Kratsios, tapped by President Donald Trump to serve as the Director of the White House Office of...more
On Thursday, February 20, 2025, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson announced a Request for Information (RFI) for “public submissions from anyone who has been a victim of tech censorship (banning, demonetization, shadow banning,...more
As we covered previously, President Trump has made clear that the U.S. is focused on increasing investments into building, scaling and speeding the development of AI infrastructure and data centers in the U.S., and Big Tech...more
With the new Trump Administration, antitrust enforcers at the US Department of Justice's (DOJ) Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are transferring leadership to the incoming appointees. FTC leadership...more
As its first policy initiative under Chair Andrew Ferguson, the FTC announced a Request for Information (RFI) “to better understand how technology platforms deny or degrade users’ access to services based on the content of...more
Key Points - Strong antitrust enforcement is expected to continue, but without the use of the novel and untested legal theories that defined the Biden administration approach. - Regulators are likely to continue to focus...more
The heightened focus on antitrust and competition issues that has defined dealmaking globally over the past few years looks set for readjustment since President Trump re-entered the White House. Under the Biden...more