FTCWatch
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November 18, 2025
Holyoak steps down as she begins US Attorney job in Utah
Melissa Holyoak stepped down Monday from her role as a Federal Trade Commissioner and has already begun her new job as interim US Attorney for the District of Utah. In a farewell note, she told FTC staff that she was proud of the incredible work the agency has accomplished in fulfilling its mission.
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November 18, 2025
DOJ reorganizes to tackle consumer protection, affirmative litigation
The Department of Justice’s consumer protection docket has a new home alongside a highly specialized team of agency lawyers with their sights on anticompetitive regulations, immigration policies, gender-related healthcare services and local government practices that run afoul of federal law.
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November 18, 2025
Farmers’ right-to-repair bill introduced in Congress
US Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Washington Democrat who once owned an auto repair shop with her husband, has sponsored a bill to make repairs of farm equipment more accessible.
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November 18, 2025
People — Former DOJ economist Goldstein moves to Charles River Associates
A 23-year veteran economist from the Department of Justice joined Charles River Associates, the Boston-based consulting company announced.
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November 18, 2025
Senators urge high court to repeal baseball’s antitrust exemption
The chairman and top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee are asking the Supreme Court to revisit the antitrust exemption for Major League Baseball.
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November 18, 2025
Calendar
March 25-27, 2026 — The American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section is holding its 74th Annual Spring Meeting. It will take place at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, DC. For more information, go to: https://events.americanbar.org/event/9afe2e97-7d0a-45ff-9b18-061b3f357006/summary.
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November 18, 2025
ABA antitrust section honors four trailblazers
The American Bar Association has inducted four of the most distinguished practitioners into its Antitrust Section’s Hall of Fame-inism.
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November 18, 2025
Google-Wiz deal wins antitrust clearance
Google has received antitrust clearance for its $32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity firm Wiz, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s website.
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November 18, 2025
Slaughter’s legal showdown has broad implications
The nature of the Federal Trade Commission and presidential power will be at issue on Dec. 8 as the Supreme Court hears the case in which former Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter challenges her firing by President Donald Trump.
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November 18, 2025
Trump asks DOJ to probe meatpackers over beef prices
President Donald Trump told the Department of Justice to initiate a price-fixing probe into meatpacking companies for allegedly inflating beef prices.
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November 18, 2025
On the Shelf: Former European legislator advises on taming Big Tech
You could fill several shelves with books that critique the influence of Big Tech from the left.
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November 18, 2025
Some Big Tech companies faced big legal, regulatory bills this quarter
Meta Platforms warned it faces claims of up to “tens of billions of dollars” in looming social media addictive design trials. Meanwhile, Amazon saw its operating income slashed by 2.4 percentage points because of a $2.5 billion settlement with US regulators.
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November 18, 2025
Proposed FTC member Baasch brings privacy, competition litigation chops to agency
Ryan S. Baasch, President Donald Trump’s choice to be the newest member of the Federal Trade Commission, is a lawyer who knows the inside of a courtroom, even as he was the field general for arguably one of the most effective privacy litigation strategies by a regulator against large tech companies.
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November 18, 2025
Neil Averitt commentary: FTC commissioners, their kids, and Internet policy
Sometimes the emotional temperature that the Federal Trade Commission brings to a topic will tell us as much about the agency's real intentions as any formal announcements. Nowhere is this more true than in protecting children on the Internet.
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November 04, 2025
Congress sharpens scrutiny of content moderation decisions
As lawmakers put Biden-era decisions about content moderation under a microscope, there are two emerging paths to confronting the critics: turn to community notes or strengthen independent teams that make moderation decisions.
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November 04, 2025
Privacy Corner: Commitment to compromise drew Cooper to BSA’s top policy role
Working on Capitol Hill on tech policy over a decade ago, Aaron Cooper often found himself trying to negotiate between different industry groups where “no one wanted to talk to each other,” he told FTCWatch.
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November 04, 2025
Google targeted by child advocates over alleged privacy harms
An organization that seeks greater privacy protections for children has urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google for violating the law.
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November 04, 2025
Robocall measures advance as help site remains down
A new report said this year an average of 2.56 billion unwanted robocalls have occurred every month. That’s the highest annual total since 2019, the year Congress passed a law to tamp down the problem.
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November 04, 2025
On the Shelf: Sorkin’s ‘1929’ offers personalities, drama
A large portion of the administrative state that conservatives are eager to dismantle came into being during the 1930s, as the country was recovering from the Great Depression.
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November 04, 2025
DOJ creates new branch for consumer protection
The Department of Justice has created a new office within the Civil Division — the Enforcement and Affirmative Litigation Branch.
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November 04, 2025
People — Musser jumps to WilmerHale
Susan Musser, the Federal Trade Commission’s chief antitrust trial counsel who led her teams in some of the agency’s biggest cases, is now an antitrust partner at WilmerHale.
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November 04, 2025
Neil Averitt commentary: AI, books for training, and copyright violations
Let’s now discuss artificial intelligence, using books to train AI, using piracy to obtain the books, and what copyright law has to say about all that. Then with a look toward the future, what has copyright law not addressed yet, perhaps leaving a task for competition law?
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November 04, 2025
Calendar
March 25-27, 2026 — The American Bar Association’s Antitrust Section is holding its 74th Annual Spring Meeting. It will be held at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, DC. For more information, go to: https://events.americanbar.org/event/9afe2e97-7d0a-45ff-9b18-061b3f357006/summary.
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November 04, 2025
In Slaughter case, amicus briefs focus on FTC powers
Supporters of the government’s position that President Donald Trump should be allowed to fire Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter are focusing part of their amicus briefs on the nature of the agency and why its operations are different than they were decades ago.
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November 04, 2025
Nexstar-Tegna review could bring generational change to broadcast deals
Nexstar’s proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of broadcaster Tegna could lead to a sea change in the antitrust analysis of broadcast mergers in the US, as the Department of Justice is likely to reconsider how it defines relevant markets to potentially include online and streaming alternatives.