Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
In early 2021, a new coterie of trustbusters came to Washington with the stated purpose of radically overhauling the antitrust status quo. The three central figures—Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) Chair Lina Khan, Department of Justice (“DOJ”) Antitrust Division Assistant Attorney General (“AAG”) Jonathan Kanter, and Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy in the White House Tim Wu—were self-identified neo-Brandeisians, committed to returning antitrust policy to a contemporary version of Justice Louis Brandeis’s ideas. At the urging of Senator Elizabeth Warren, President Biden turned over his Administration’s antitrust policy to the neo-Brandeisians, who vowed to break antitrust’s reigning consumer welfare standard, retool competition policy to protect other interests such as labor and small business, and significantly expand scrutiny of corporate power, particularly as to Big Tech.
Four years later, as the neo-Brandeisians retreat from Washington in the wake of a new administration, it is fitting to take stock of what actually happened in those four years. Given the soaring political salience of antitrust during the Biden Administration, there is already a rush to define the narrative regarding the neo-Brandeisians’ time in the nation’s capital. Inquiring people want to know, and manipulative people want to manipulate.
Recommended Citation
Crane, Daniel A. "Neo-Brandeis Goes to Washington: A Provisional Assessment of the Biden Administration’s Antitrust Record." University of Virginia Law Review Online 111 (2025): 215-253.