One of the nation’s top anti-monopoly regulators on Wednesday said the government is looking to expand its playbook on how to identify and block potentially harmful mergers or excessive industry consolidation. “As we have seen the growth of new technologies, the market dynamics have changed,” said Lina Khan, chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, in an interview with CNBC. “When you start to see trends toward consolidation, those can often be important moments for regulators to jump in.” The FTC and U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday said they would seek public input on how to update government rules to prevent anti-competitive mergers. Biden administration officials contend old antitrust rules are inadequate to prevent harm to the economy since they are too narrowly focused on price fixing. Khan, 32, has said there’s too little competition in too many industries and that it can stifle innovation or harm workers. Khan and other regulators are especially focused on large tech companies such as Facebook and Google . The FTC is now engaged in a lawsuit against Facebook.
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