chris pike

Exclusive: Trump fires both Democratic commissioners at FTC, sources say President Donald Trump fired the two Democratic commissioners at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, two sources familiar with the situation said, in another major test of the independence of regulatory agencies.

Trump fires both Democratic commissioners at the #FTC. Clearly contrary to the intent of the FTC being an independent agency. We’re well on our way to being ruled by an autocratic, authoritarian regime. This has to be stopped.
www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

A couple hours ago, the FTC was deleting hundreds of blog posts. Now, Trump is seemingly trying to delete Democratic commissioners.

Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya just posted this statement to X.

And how does preventing an independent competition agency from enforcing the rule of law against monopolists contribute to achieving that growth? A chancellor that either doesn't see or care about the incoherence of that policy should resign.

Caving in to lobbying and dismantling the CMA as an independent institution capable of defending consumers (and workers) from monopolies is an act of economic vandalism that damages growth and drives inequality - these signatories should be ashamed of cheerleading this nonsense

Which means it can only be a deliberate move to follow the Irish path of capitulation in the face of corporate misconduct in the naive hope of winning favours from bullying monopolists. Singapore-on-Thames?

Strong competition enforcement is such an obvious win-win for everyone except the monopolist - pro-growth, pro-consumer and pro-worker, that it's hard to believe this is an unwitting mistake.

Shocking. Having already undermined the CMA's independence, this escalation of an illiterate pro-monopoly 'growth' strategy is just the sort of rubbish we'd expect from Johnson/Truss. Dreadful to see it being pushed by a labour government

Return-to-office (RTO) mandates lead to abnormally high employee turnover, especially for female/more senior/more skilled employees.

It also takes significantly longer to fill these job vacancies after RTO mandates.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Big new antitrust case filed against Microsoft in the UK...

With Draghi recommending the adoption of fake market definitions in order to clear telecom mergers, and the CMA apparently wobbling in the face of fake remedies, the need to look past the lobbyists and return to the evidence is greater than ever. #mergercontrol #cma #competition

This is especially important right now at a time when well-informed commentators report that the CMA is giving serious thought to abandoning its commitment to protect consumers from the cost of living crisis, and accepting the incoherent, unreliable and unworkable promises offered by Vodafone.

Great to see leading competition economists Tommaso Valletti Massimo Motta @tomasoduso.bsky.social Martin Peitz citing FIDERES work with Lorien Sabatino, the Centre for Competition Policy and Lear - Economic Consultancy in articulating the errors in the Draghi Report (lnkd.in/e56sV3Ab).

Decision made by the UK's Competition Appeals Tribunal on which of 2 proposed class actions on Amazon's Buy Box can proceed. My expert report was cited as "the key differentiator" between them - www.catribunal.org.uk/sites/cat/fi...

Apple might be the next Big Tech company facing antitrust charges in the US The agency is examining Apple’s grasp on consumers.

Apple might be the next Big Tech company facing antitrust charges in the US - https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/5/24027001/apple-doj-antitrust-lawsuit-investigation