Abstract
The United States is experiencing crippling economic inequalities that harken back to the Gilded Age. For the first time, legal scholars have turned to antitrust law to reverse this alarming trend. These scholars, including current Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan, are testing this ambitious theory in the E-commerce industry. E-commerce is a market largely dominated by one company: Amazon. With its dominance, Amazon lures small businesses into its third-party seller marketplace, where it controls those business’s prices and punishes those that resist. Lina Kahn’s FTC has formally launched its litigation campaign against Amazon, claiming that the company has violated Section Two of the Sherman Act and Section 5(a) of the FTC Act. After tracing antitrust’s evolution, discussing the parties’ claims and evaluating their theories, this Note will determine the Commission’s odds for success and promote a theoretical middle ground that the Commission can use if it argues the case in October 2026.
Recommended Citation
Matthew Cole Conover,
FTC v. Amazon: A Turning Point for Antitrust Law?,
31 Wash. & Lee J. Civ. Rts. & Soc. Just. 295
(2025).
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol31/iss1/8
Included in
Administrative Law Commons, Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons, Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Commercial Law Commons, Human Rights Law Commons