FTC Streamlines Consumer Protection and Competition Investigations in Key Areas

The Federal Trade Commission voted to approve and make public a series of resolutions that will enable agency staff to efficiently and expeditiously investigate conduct in core FTC priority areas over the next ten years. Streamlining and improving efficiency at the agency is vitally important given the increased volume of investigatory work created by the surge in merger filings. Having already doubled between 2010 and 2020, the number of mergers filed with the antitrust authorities this year hit a record-setting pace of 2,067 acquisitions for the first seven months alone.  With these resolutions in place, the FTC can better utilize its limited resources and move forward in earnest to quickly investigate potential misconduct. The Bureaus recommended that the Commission authorize eight new compulsory process resolutions in these essential areas:

1. Acts or Practices Affecting United States Armed Forces Service Members and Veterans;
2. Acts or Practices Affecting Children;
3. Bias in Algorithms and Biometrics;
4. Deceptive and Manipulative Conduct on the Internet;
5. Repair Restrictions;
6. Abuse of Intellectual Property;
7. Common Directors and Officers and Common Ownership; and
8. Monopolization Offenses.