Office of Public Affairs | Antitrust Division Contributes to Historic Efforts to Unleash Prosperity Via Deregulation

Today, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice proclaims its collaboration with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to determine over 125 anticompetitive rules in response to the President’s Executive Order on Reducing Anti-Competitive Regulatory Barriers. Under the management of President Trump, the Antitrust Division, in shut coordination with the FTC and federal companies, performed a complete, government-wide effort to determine and reform anticompetitive rules that distort markets and stifle competitors.

“In America we believe in free markets, not central planning by government regulators or powerful monopolists,” stated Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “Lowering barriers to entry by removing anticompetitive regulations will free America’s innovators and entrepreneurs to do what they do best: drive America’s future success.”

The Executive Order acknowledged that federal rules shouldn’t predetermine financial winners and losers, but some rules “operate to exclude new market entrants.”  It tasked the Chairman of the FTC and the Attorney General to seek the advice of with the heads of companies and to develop a consolidated listing of rules that warrant rescission or modification in gentle of their anti-competitive results. The FTC and DOJ labored carefully and successfully on this evaluation, and right now Chairman Ferguson submitted an intensive listing of anti-competitive rules to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.