New Antitrust Chief Outlines Enforcement Philosophy

Elections have consequences, and one of the results of our most recent Presidential election is going to be a more aggressive antitrust enforcement policy. Yesterday the new Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Christine Varney, gave her first policy speech since taking her job at the Department of Justice, and it demonstrated the sharp change in tone that we should get used to for the next several years. If you read the front page story in the New York Times that conveniently appeared the morning of the speech, you would be forgiven for thinking that the antitrust world is going to turn upside down. There will be changes, but we are talking about movement from one side to the other of what is a pretty broad antitrust mainstream. We are not looking at the antitrust version of socialized medicine here. We are going to see much tougher rhetoric and more aggressive enforcement; what will not be clear, until we have some actual experience, is what exactly "more