Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: Assistant Attorney General Slater keynotes antitrust enforcement symposium at Georgetown, (Sep 17, 2025)

By Kenneth H. Ryesky, M.B.A., J.D.

Antitrust division policy should structure its remedies to "open markets to little tech at the same time that they incentivize our big tech firms to innovate rather than exclude."

Gail Slater, the recently confirmed DoJ Antitrust Division Assistant Attorney general, informed an international antitrust enforcement symposium of the Division's plans to apply and enforce the antitrust laws in "Unleashing Innovation the American Way: Through Free Market Competition," a Keynote Address given at the 2025 Georgetown Law Global Antitrust Enforcement Symposium on September 16, 2025. Slater’s discourse addressed the intersection of antitrust remedies and the future of artificial intelligence (AI) innovation against the historical backdrop of American antitrust enforcement in the wake of technological innovation. Ms. Slater concluded that the American way is to "empower great companies to do what they do best—to compete through innovation and win opportunities in the free market—and the pie grows for everyone."

Antitrust remedies pave way for Silicon Valley. Ms. Slater discussed how the DoJ's 1956 settlement with AT&T laid the foundation for electronic innovation. AT&T had abused its telephone monopoly to stifle competition in ancillary industries. The 1949 lawsuit initially sought, among other things, divestiture of Western Electric, which manufactured AT&T's telephone equipment. The consent decree entailed no such "structural relief," but provided that AT&T would, among other things, disclose Western Electric's costs and license some of its patents to other entities. These remedies availed the then-nascent transistor technologies to small entrepreneurs, some of whom would later grow into technological giants themselves; more importantly, AT&T was not the only entity that was involved in transistor technology innovation. AI as is known today would be impossible without such accelerated innovation processes. The DoJ's antitrust remedies in the 1949 AT&T case were thus "a catalyst for competitive growth and disruption."

AT&T breakup and the communications industry. The Assistant Attorney General recounted how the 1974–1984 Bell System breakup litigation opened up the communications industry to competition and innovation that reduced the costs of long-distance telephone calls and facilitated development of novel communications equipment because the so-called "Baby Bell" divested regional operating systems were then free to look to other sources than Western Electric for their equipment. The "reality of diverse equipment options and multiple nationwide competitors" made possible today's now ubiquitous mobile smartphone devices.

Ms. Slater reminded her audience that AT&T's opposition to the DoJ's divestiture included claims that the break-up of its telephone monopoly would ultimately weaken American military preparedness and cause the loss of the Cold War. She observed that "As long as there are powerful monopolists, there will be fearmongering," but "national security and global technology leadership depends on competitive markets that allow for the growth of new cutting-edge U.S. technologies."

As for the "Baby Bell" remnants of the divested AT&T monopoly, they delivered a greater return on the investments of their shareholders than the old monolithic AT&T entity would have.

The 2002 Microsoft consent decree. Following the D.C. Circuit's affirmation of the D.C. District Court's finding that Microsoft was liable for illegal monopolization, a consent decree was entered which "cut off the company’s ability to centrally plan everything that happened in and around Windows PCs." This "injected critical oxygen into the Silicon Valley ecosystem" that opened the markets for increased innovation.

A lesson learned from the Microsoft consent decree was "[w]hen we break a monopolist’s exclusionary central control of a market, we create opportunities and incentives to invest in the leapfrog innovation that powers America’s long-term economic success.

News: Antitrust AntitrustDivisionNews