Without her vote, the case against Facebook could hit serious roadblocks, splitting the vote 2-2 between Democratic and Republican commissioners.
The lawsuit marks the government’s most significant attempt to protect competition since its groundbreaking case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. It could be an opening salvo ahead of other major government antitrust actions, given ongoing investigations of major tech companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook at both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
The Justice Department plans to bring an antitrust case against Google as soon as this month, after Attorney General William Barr overruled career lawyers who said they needed more time to build a strong case against one of the world’s wealthiest, most formidable technology companies, according to five people briefed on internal department conversations.
A group of baseball and hockey fans can go forward with claims that the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball violate U.S. antitrust law in their control over television and Internet rights.
Two class-action disputes divided the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday as companies looked to build on the victory won last year when the justices threw out a nationwide sex-bias suit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. In one, the court’s Republican-appointed majority questioned efforts to press an antitrust suit against Comcast Corp. Comcast is seeking to stop an antitrust suit that seeks $875 million on behalf of as many as two million Philadelphia-area customers.
