The Sherman and Clayton Acts form the backbone of U.S.
antitrust policy. But another piece of legislation gives the government the
power to regulate business practices on scales smaller than monopoly. In 1914,
President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Trade Commission Act into law,
which created the FTC. In particular, section 5 of the FTC Act should give
pause to America’s entrepreneurs. It states:
“Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce,
and unfair or deceptive acts or practices… are hereby declared unlawful.”
Deceptive business practices should be, and are, illegal.
Fraud has been against the law for a long time. The worrying part is the term
“unfair methods of competition,” which the law never defines.
Congress could have enumerated which business practices
were to be made illegal, but it chose not to. FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright,
in a recent policy statement, cites (p.3) a Senate Committee
Report on the 1914 FTC Act noting “that there were too many unfair practices to
define, and after writing 20 of them into the law it would be quite possible to
invent others.” So Congress delegated its lawmaking authority over to the new
FTC….To Read More…..
No comments:
Post a Comment