FTC Surrenders Its Best Weapon in Antitrust Battle
The threat of a lawsuit used to be a deterrent to deals. Now the certainty of one is just the cost of doing business.
FTC Chair Lina Khan doesn't have the resources to fight every deal.
Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
As chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan knows the value of deterrence. In her own words, “You want to prevent illegal deals from happening in the first place.” Why, then, is the FTC squandering the best deterrent of all: uncertainty?
Accurate predictions are the lifeblood of business. Be it future revenues, consumer habits or the length of a downturn, there is nothing more valuable than knowing what’s coming. Doubt, meanwhile, hobbles decision-making and encourages the inertia that forestalls the confidence needed for the sort of transactions the FTC wants to stop.