President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday his intention to appoint Mark Meador as a commissioner of the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC). If confirmed, Meador would take over the commissioner slot presently held by FTC Chair Lina Khan, whose time period expired on September 26.
Meador is an completed antitrust litigator, however his antagonism towards Large Tech, and bigness per se, will compromise Trump’s acknowledged objectives of sustaining America’s financial and technological dominance.
He has lengthy opposed massive enterprise, from Google to Ticketmaster, and regards the free market as merely a way to the top of human flourishing, not as an finish in and of itself. Meador’s stance on financial freedom displays his explicitly anti-libertarian conception of freedom as “requir[ing] order and restraints upon our passions.” Reaching Meador’s imaginative and prescient of freedom apparently additionally requires restraints upon commerce.
Meador helped write the Advertising Middlemen Endangering Rigorous Internet Competition Accountability (AMERICA) Act to interrupt up Google’s advert tech stack whereas serving as deputy chief counsel for antitrust and competitors coverage to Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah). Meador’s animus towards Large Tech was confirmed by The Heritage Basis heralding his visiting fellowship at its Tech Coverage Heart as “a big milestone in our mission to carry Large Tech accountable for its anticompetitive practices.”
If confirmed, Meador could be the de facto anti-Large Tech commissioner on the FTC. Andrew Ferguson, a present FTC Commissioner and Trump’s nominee for company chairman, has additionally vocalized opposition to Large Tech. Ferguson has pledged to “finish Large Tech’s vendetta towards competitors and free speech” whereas additionally promising to “be sure that America is the world’s technological chief,” per The New York Times. Ferguson, like Meador, fails to comprehend that prosecuting Large Tech for acquisitions disincentivizes innovation by eradicating worthwhile exit alternatives for startups.
Meador’s antitrust stance starkly departs from Ferguson, and fellow Republican Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, in his help of the Robinson-Patman Act (RPA) of 1936, which makes it unlawful “to discriminate in value between completely different purchasers of commodities of like grade and high quality.” Meador has accused the FTC and Division of Justice (DOJ) of neglecting their obligation to execute the RPA “by a deliberate coverage of non-enforcement” and encourages antitrust enforcers to convey RPA circumstances the place “shoppers are harmed by value discrimination.”
On Thursday, the FTC did simply this by submitting a complaint towards Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits. Democratic Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya’s statement, joined by Chair Lina Khan and Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, alleges the beverage distributor violated the RPA by charging smaller liquor retailers increased per-unit costs for a similar drinks. Nonetheless, as Holyoak’s and Ferguson’s dissents emphasize, Part 2(a) of the RPA exempts these “differentials which make solely due allowance for variations in the price of manufacture, sale, or supply.”
The good thing about such pricing methods, which exploit economies of scale to supply retailers and shoppers bulk items at decrease per-unit costs, is evidenced by the recognition of wholesale golf equipment like Costco and BJ’s. Nonetheless, given Meador’s endorsement of the RPA, it is possible that he’ll facet with Bedoya and Slaughter to convey forth extra complaints within the subsequent administration.
If confirmed, this may not be Meador‘s first stint on the FTC. After graduating from the College of Houston Legislation Heart in 2011, he served as an lawyer with the FTC’s Bureau of Competitors for 5 years. He was additionally an antitrust enforcer with the DOJ for 2 years earlier than working for Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) from 2020 to 2023.
Meador’s antipathy towards Large Tech, his endorsement of zombie antitrust legal guidelines, and his rejection of freedom as an finish in itself bodes poorly for financial dynamism and client alternative.
