Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Freezing Innovation: How The Platform Competition And Opportunity Act Will Freeze Funds In The Tech Start-Up Market, Brandon Wong

Pepperdine Law Review

The rise of technological giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook motivated the House Judiciary Committee to pass a slew of new antitrust legislation bills to curb these companies’ considerable market power. The Platform Competition and Opportunity Act proposes to significantly cut a dominant online platform’s ability to continue growing by deeming certain acquisitions presumptively unlawful. The Act shifts the burden to the acquiring company to prove the proposed transaction would not be anticompetitive by eliminating a potential competitor. In an effort to protect competition, the Act has good intentions to protect start-up companies that are fearful of being acquired …