Obama\u27s Antitrust Agenda

Antitrust law is back in vogue. After years in the wilderness, antitrust enforcement has reemerged as a hot topic in Washington and in the legal academy. In one heady week inMay of 2009, a frontpage story in the New York Times reported the dramatic decision of Christine Varney —theObama administration’s new AntitrustDivision head—to jettison the entire report onmonopolization offenses released by the Bush JusticeDepartment just eightmonths earlier. In a speech before the Center for American Progress, Varney announced that the Justice Department is “committed to aggressively pursuing enforcement of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.” As if to prove that “shock and awe” enforcement against monopolists is still possible, two days later the European Commission released its decision fining Intel nearly $1.5 billion for beating up on amd in the microprocessor market. Suddenly, the antitrust community felt an electric current that it had not felt in years