Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: House passes measure to fund Antitrust Division in FY 2016, (Jun 4, 2015)

By Jeffrey May, J.D.

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved appropriations legislation that would fund the Antitrust Division and the rest of the Department of Justice, as well as the Department of Commerce and various other agencies, for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016. The vote to approve the proposed “Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act” (H.R. 2578) was 242 to 183, primarily along party lines. The White House has already threatened a veto of the bill, questioning some of the funding cuts and late Republican-backed amendments.

Funding for the Antitrust Division for FY 2016 would remain the same as in the current fiscal year. The measure would provide $162,246,000 for salaries and expenses of the Antitrust Division. That amount is $2,731,000 below the Administration’s request. Overall, the Department of Justice would receive approximately $27.5 billion of the $51.4 billion in total discretionary funding in the proposal.

Recent testimony. William J. Baer, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division, recently told House lawmakers that the agency brings in far more in Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) premerger filing fees and criminal fines than its requested funding. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law on May 15, Baer noted that while the President requested that the Antitrust Division receive approximately $165 million for FY 2016, roughly 50 percent of the agency’s funding was offset by HSR premerger filing fees paid by companies planning to merge. In addition, the criminal fines the agency obtains routinely amount to over 10 times the Antitrust Division’s annual direct appropriation.

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