Clifford Chance

House Judiciary Committee Passes Six Antitrust Bills Targeting Tech Platforms and Large Transactions, Setting Up Vote Before House of Representatives

June 28, 2021

Over the course of 19 hours on June 23rd and June 24th, the House Judiciary Committee revised and approved five bills aimed at reining in Big Tech's power over consumers. After a brief recess, the Committee reconvened on June 24th and approved a sixth bill. The six bills will now move on to a full vote in the House of Representatives. If the voting trend continues from the Committee in the full House of Representatives, these bills will move on to the Senate, where the margin for passing these bills will be much narrower. It is unknown if the Senate, which is evenly split between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, will have the appetite to pass any of these bills, although the "Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act" and the "State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act" have companion Senate bills, making it more likely that some iteration of these bills could become law. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the "Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act" in May 2021 (see our previous alert on the topic here). These bills follow on from last year’s high profile report published by the Committee, Investigation into Competition in Digital Markets, which called for a series of legislative overhauls intended to ensure federal antitrust laws effectively promote robust competition in technology markets.

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