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President Obama Issues Executive Order to Increase and Protect Competition
Practical Law Legal Update w-002-1774 (Approx. 3 pages)
President Obama Issues Executive Order to Increase and Protect Competition
by Practical Law Antitrust
| Published on 27 Apr 2016 • USA (National/Federal) |
President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order outlining policy initiatives and agency responsibilities to increase and protect competition and the American consumer.
On April 15, 2016, President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order to protect consumers by promoting competition in the US economy. The order was broken down into two parts:
- Policy initiatives.
- Agency responsibilities.
Policy Initiatives
The order states that competitive markets are essential to:
- Protect the American economy.
- Advance national priorities, such as affordable health care and access to broadband.
- Promote economic growth to create jobs and encourage innovation.
The order further states that federal agencies must work with the FTC and DOJ to detect and prevent anticompetitive conduct such as unlawful collusion, bid-rigging, price-fixing, and anticompetitive mergers. To that end, federal agencies should establish procompetitive rules and regulations and eliminate regulations that limit competition.
Agency Responsibilities
The order noted that executive departments and agencies may have authority that they could use to promote competition. The order states that to achieve the policy initiatives, federal agencies should, in their respective areas of responsibility, identify specific actions to take to:
- Detect anticompetitive conduct and refer violations to the FTC and DOJ. However, the order noted that the agencies should continue to take action against illegal behavior under their own statutory authority.
- Lessen undue burdens on competition, including by enacting procompetitive rules and regulations and eliminating restrictive regulations.
The order also directs agencies to:
- No later than 30 days from the order, submit to the President through the Director of the National Economic Council a list of:
- potential actions that will promote competition;
- specific practices that may restrict consumer choice or block new market entrants and actions the agency can take to address those issues; and
- any authorities or tools that may be available to enhance competition.
- No later than 60 days from the order, report to the President through the Director of the National Economic Council recommendations on:
- specific actions agencies can take to increase competition, eliminate barriers to competition, and improve consumer purchasing awareness; and
- the priority level of and timeline for completing those actions.
- Semi-annually, report to the President through the Director of the National Economic Council on any additional planned actions to promote competition.
The FTC followed up on the President's order by suggesting, among other things, that federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Patent and Trademark Office review the comments that the FTC has filed with them in recent years evaluating how specific policies affect competition and consumers.