DOJ Antitrust Division creates task force to target anticompetitive laws and regulations

The task force will include attorneys, economists and other staff across the Antirust Division and work alongside interagency partners to review responses, with the goal of helping agencies revise or eliminate those regulations it considers to “make it more difficult for businesses to compete effectively.” DOJ is requesting information from the public about both federal and state laws by May 26, 2025. 

Task force highlights AAG Slater’s commitment to President Trump’s deregulation policy agenda

DOJ’s March 27, 2025 announcement of the formation of the Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force highlights two recent executive orders issued by President Trump in the first month of his second term in furtherance of the administration’s deregulation efforts: the January 2025 Executive Order “Unleashing Prosperity through Deregulation”¹ and the February 2025 Executive Order “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency” Deregulatory Initiative.”² The latter directs federal agencies to “initiate a process to review all regulations” to identify those that “impose undue burdens on small businesses and impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship.”³

In a statement included in DOJ’s announcement, AAG Slater said that the Division is committed to “[r]ealizing President Trump’s economic Golden Age,” which she said will require “unwinding burdensome regulations that stifle free market competition.” AAG Slater pledged that the Antitrust Division will “stand against harmful barriers to competition whether imposed by public regulators or private monopolists” and work with the public and federal agencies to identify anticompetitive laws and regulations.⁴ In addition, speaking at a conference on April 2, 2025, Slater said that DOJ will be looking at “unintentionally anticompetitive regulations” as part of an administration-wide effort to evaluate ways that government regulations can be barriers to entry for smaller companies.⁵      

DOJ requests public input on laws and regulations that “make it more difficult for businesses to compete effectively”

Characterizing the housing, transportation, food and agriculture, health care, and energy markets as those that have “the greatest impact on American households,” DOJ has requested that the public assist the new task force in identifying “unnecessary laws and regulations” in these and other markets. Specifically, DOJ identifies increased compliance costs and the difficulty faced by small businesses and new products when trying to enter markets as examples of the “undue burdens” that may stem from certain regulations. 

In addition to reviewing responses to its request for information, according to the DOJ announcement, the task force will also employ other means of advocating for the removal of laws and regulations it deems anticompetitive. This includes filing amicus briefs and statements of interest in private litigation, as well as providing comment on proposed legislation in the states at the request of state legislators. 

Past is prologue

DOJ’s announcement notes that in 2018, during President Trump’s first term, the agency released a report⁶ on how regulations can harm competition (the 2018 Report). The 2018 Report summarized insights gained from a series of roundtables hosted by the agency and comprised of legal and advocacy organizations to asses harm to competition from various forms of regulation. Following publication of the 2018 Report, DOJ submitted a number of comments to federal agencies supporting “efforts to eliminate unnecessary regulations and increase competition.” Some of these comments were submitted during the Biden administration: the DOJ announcement cites as examples DOJ’s April 2022 comment opposing regulations that would have protected incumbent electricity transmission companies from “much-needed competition in energy markets across the country,”⁷ and a comment “aimed at making it easier for individuals and small businesses to navigate the federal government bureaucracy.”⁸

Looking ahead

 As noted above, the DOJ announcement identifies certain industries that the agency considers to be especially relevant, and therefore laws and regulations related to these sectors may be subject to heightened scrutiny by the new task force. While it remains to be seen exactly what types of laws and regulations will be a focus of the new task force, laws and regulations that could receive heightened scrutiny include state professional licensing laws, which have been criticized in the past for protecting incumbents from competition by new, lower-cost entrants. Public comments to assist the task force in identifying laws and regulations that raise barriers to competition may be submitted until May 26, 2025 through the Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force page on the Antitrust Division’s website. 

Authored by Logan Breed Chuck Loughlin and Jill Ottenberg.