US: FTC celebrates centennial with a view towards the future

The US Federal Trade Commission is celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary this year, and is commemorating the milestone by looking back at its beginnings and gazing forward to new efforts to protect competition.

FTC Commissioner Julie Brill spoke at the American Bar Association’s Fall Forum on Thursday to explore the FTC’s history and examine it’s path ahead.

Brill, who highlighted the founding of the FTC in 1914 as an antitrust enforcer, paid homage to the agency’s “intellectual founder” Louis Brandeis, who “led the crusade at the beginning of the 20th century against the large steel trusts and other monopolies that were engulfing the country’s economic system.”

The Commissioner said Brandeis would have been pleased with the FTC’s recent crackdowns on anticompetitive conduct, emphasizing the watchdog’s antitrust enforcement in the healthcare industry in the wake of the Affordable Care Act and its lawsuit against St. Luke’s hospital.

Brill noted that the regulator will continue to crack down on pay-for-delay agreements following FTC v. Actavis.

”Moving forward,” Brill said, “you can expect the FTC to continue to enforce the antitrust laws, not just with respect to anticompetitive merges and other practices that erode existing competition, but also where these activities impede future competition.”

The full speech can be read through the link below.

Full content: FTC.gov

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