FTC’s Public Meetings Show a Glaring Deficiency in Its Antitrust Cases

By Paul Steidler: As the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proceeds with a trial against Meta and gears up for another on September 22 against Amazon related to Prime, it should reconsider its priorities.

Exhibit A is the FTC’s open public meetings where members of the public could speak before commissioners for two to three minutes on issues that they found to be important. Former FTC Chair Lina Khan initiated the meetings – and it was a good idea with many thoughtful, well-reasoned speeches, which became part of the FTC’s official record.

Ten such meetings have been held since March 2022. The issues that drew the heaviest attention were concerns about pharmacy benefit managers, consolidation among healthcare providers, franchisers, and large grocery stores. I attended most of these meetings and do not recall hearing concerns ever being raised about Amazon, Amazon Prime, or any of Meta’s companies (i.e., Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram).

This raises the central question: Why would the FTC use vast amounts of taxpayer funds in lawsuits against companies and over things that are not even on the public’s radar?

While litigation against Amazon and Meta attracts big press, it does not solve big problems. In fact, there is a heavy cost for such lawsuits: the large taxpayer expenditures for staff time and outside consultants, the alternative costs of other legal actions by the FTC, increased expenses and distractions for these companies, and a threat to the companies’ vitality to continue to be powerful agents of innovation for the U.S. economy.

It is time for the FTC to listen to people from its own meetings and back off.