Foley & Lardner LLP Partners Benjamin Dryden and Louis Lehot were quoted in the Law360 article, “Mid-Year Update: No Antitrust Redux Yet Despite Stack of Bills.” The article looks at the antitrust legislation proposed in Congress earlier this year, including the American Innovation and Choice Online Act.
That bill, which would prohibit certain technology platforms from “preference[ing]” their own products and services over other companies’, has yet to pass in the current session. Dryden told Law360 that technology companies have often been successful by creating integrated ecosystems that “make it easy to get exactly what you’re looking for without spending a lot of time searching and testing various alternatives.” He added, “I think there’s certainly some segment of consumers out there who very well like self-preferencing.” Lehot also commented that the bill’s targeting of technology companies that have become ubiquitous globally threatens an industry he said is the main reason the U.S. remains a global economic superpower. “Do we want to not have that leading industry in the world anymore?” he asked.
