The Role of the State

John B. Kirkwood explains six ways in which Big Tech’s alliances with AI startups could harm competition, making clear that the antitrust agencies have good reasonto monitor and investigate them.

Blaine Saito writes that the end to the Chevron deference doctrine could lead to a return to the National Muffler standard that grants judicial deference to long-standing agency rules and rules promulgated contemporaneously with Congressional statute. This may mean that the courts overturn newer taxation rules, though the Internal Revenue Code provides explicit discretionary rulemaking power to the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service, which should further limit Loper Bright’s impact on the agency.

Vivek Ghosal reviews the data, economics, and market conditions of the growing artificial intelligence market and finds that it is quite dynamic in terms of evolving partnerships and firms, and is relatively competitive. Thus, Big Tech investments into AI startups do not warrant investigation by the government at this time.

Matt Perault writes that there is little indication that Big Tech investments in artificial intelligence startups are harming competition. In fact, the opposite is likely true. Antitrust regulators should instead focus their attention on the real threat to AI competition: rules and regulations that will make it harder for startups that to compete with large tech companies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to permeate across different industry sectors, offering unprecedented opportunities alongside significant risks. Effective governance necessitates coordinated cross-border efforts to build institutional expertise, dispel misconceptions, foster innovation, and align global safety priorities. Advocating structured dialogue and a bottom-up approach, Oscar Borgogno and Alessandra Perrazzelli present a proposal which aims to avoid institutional redundancy and legal unpredictability for individuals and firms.

Adam Crews writes that Congress’s expressly broad grants of rulemaking power mean that the Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision limiting federal agencies’ discretion will likely affect the Federal Communications Commission less than some other federal agencies. Instead, the major questions and nondelegation doctrines pose greater threats to the FCC’s regulatory discretion.

Erik Hovenkamp reviews the findings of Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling against Google for monopolizing the internet search market and discusses what the case will mean for the other ongoing Big Tech cases and the future of antitrust.

A United States federal court has found Google in breach of the Sherman Act by pursuing default status for Google Search and Google Chrome. However, Google's motives and the precise ways in which Google Search’s default status serves its interests remain poorly understood by the public and the antitrust community. They pertain to preventing users from migrating to competitors’ offerings in general and, in particular, to capturing user migration to next-generation platforms to access and search the internet. Understanding this motive will be essential in the calibration of forthcoming remedies and provide lessons for future cases against Google and other tech companies also confronted with user migration.

Summary Teaser: Howell E. Jackson revisits George Stigler’s famous 1964 critique of the Securities and Exchange Commission and particularly his critique of the work of SEC lawyer Milton Cohen, who headed the SEC’s Special Study of Securities Markets in the early 1960s.  Although time has validated Cohen’s intuitions regarding the value of expanding SEC oversight into over-the-counter markets, Stigler’s call for more careful economic analysis supported by robust empirical justification has heavily influenced how the SEC and other financial regulators stive to operate today.

The following is an excerpt from Austin Frerick's new book, “Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry,” now out at Island Press.