The FTC's Attempt to Block Microsoft's Acquisition of Activision Blizzard

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Lena Khan argues that mergers can have a high cost by granting companies too much power. This is evident in the FTC's attempt to block Microsoft from acquiring Activision Blizzard, a video game company. Although Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are not direct competitors, the merger could potentially allow Microsoft to dominate the video game market and limit other platforms' access to popular games. Despite the FTC's concerns, the courts ruled in favor of Microsoft, stating that the FTC failed to prove that the merger would harm consumers. However, the FTC continues to pursue the case. This brings us to the highly anticipated final case Lena discusses, which has been long-awaited in the world of antitrust.

When Lina Khan was in law school back in 2017, she wrote a law review article called 'Amazon's Antitrust Paradox,' that went kinda viral in policy circles. In it, she argued that antitrust enforcement in the U.S. was behind the times. For decades, regulators had focused narrowly on consumer welfare, and they'd bring companies to court only when they thought consumers were being harmed by things like rising prices. But in the age of digital platforms like Amazon and Facebook, Khan argued in the article, the time had come for a more proactive approach to antitrust.

Just four years later, President Biden appointed Lina Khan to be the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, one of the main government agencies responsible for enforcing antitrust in America, putting her in the rare position of putting some of her ideas into practice.

Now, two years into the job, Khan has taken some big swings at big tech companies like Meta and Microsoft. But the FTC has also faced a couple of big losses in the courts. On today's show, a conversation with FTC Chair Lina Khan on what it's like to try to turn audacious theory into bureaucratic practice, the FTC's new lawsuit against Amazon, and what it all means for business as usual.

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