Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Cantor and Attorney General Merrick Garland (left) speak during a press conference announcing the antitrust lawsuit against Apple at the Department of Justice on March 21, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Mandel Gunn | AFP | Getty Images
Jonathan Canter, the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust chief, announced Tuesday that he will resign on Friday after a three-year term in which he aimed to revitalize competition law in the United States.
Mr. Cantor and his counterpart, Lina Khan, of the Federal Trade Commission, are seeking to restore antitrust enforcement in the United States as a check on corporate power, drawing praise from Democrats and some Republicans.
“Plutocracy is itself a kind of dictatorship,” Cantor said in his farewell speech on Tuesday. “When corporations, larger and more powerful than most world governments, threaten individual freedom through coercive private taxation and regulation, they threaten our way of life,” he said.
Some lawyers and business groups have criticized Mr. Khan and Mr. Cantor’s policies and supported a return to the more restrictive view of antitrust that has prevailed for four decades.
But President-elect Donald Trump’s antitrust choices are unlikely to significantly reduce enforcement.
Gail Slater, an aide to Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, will succeed Canter once he is confirmed. Before being named Trump’s running mate, Vance praised Khan’s efforts and said companies can engage in “tyrannical” behavior.
Mr. Cantor’s deputy, Doha Mekki, will lead the antitrust division, at least until President Trump takes office. After that point, President Trump may appoint another acting department head.
Mr. Canter got the Justice Department’s antitrust division into full swing and filed a lawsuit. apple, of the alphabet Google, ticket master and visaand won a landmark legal victory against Google in a lawsuit brought during the Trump administration over its dominance in online search.
The Justice Department under Cantor also filed a lawsuit that successfully blocked a partnership between the two countries. jet blue and americanJetBlue is proposing a $3.8 billion merger with Spirit Airlines and a $2.2 billion merger with Penguin Random House, the world’s largest book publisher, and rival Simon & Schuster.
In his speech, Canter warned that the Justice Department’s antitrust work faces an existential threat unless it fully accesses funding from the merger filing fees it collects.
