Andrew Ferguson, a Republican on the Federal Trade Commission, has been named as the agency’s chair.
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday appointed Ferguson as he vowed to continue contesting “Big Tech censorship” and “protecting Freedom of Speech.”
Ferguson will be the “most America First, and pro-innovation FTC Chair in our Country’s History,” Trump wrote in a statement issued posted on Truth Social.
The nomination comes after Trump’s selection of Gail Slater, a veteran tech and media policy adviser who’s had stints at Fox Corp. and Roku, to the top antitrust post at the Justice Department. That move was also motivated to curb the reach of “Big Tech,” which has “run wild for years” and is “stifling competition in our most innovative sector,” Trump said.
On the FTC, which he was appointed to in April, Ferguson has dissented from an agency initiative to ban non-compete clauses in private employment contracts and adopt rules that would make it easier to cancel subscriptions, both of which have been challenged in court.
In line with those steps, Ferguson is expected to stray from rules adopted by the agency under current chair Lina Khan that some have criticized for hampering dealmaking. This could include withdrawing new merger guidelines unveiled last year by the FTC and Department of Justice, which give a road map for regulatory review of acquisitions. Unlike the previous version, the guidelines say that acquisitions that restructure supply chains, allowing a firm to control access to products or services to lessen competition, may violate antitrust laws. They also don’t differentiate between horizontal and vertical purchases, stating that mergers “should not entrench or extend a dominant position,” and take into consideration a deal’s impact on wages and working conditions.
The Writers Guild of America, which supported revisions to the guidelines, has been critical of regulators approving deals that it claims has undermined labor by consolidating the entertainment and media industry. Last year, it released a 15-page antitrust report arguing Disney, Amazon and Netflix are poised to become “the new gatekeepers” of Hollywood.
Before joining the FTC, Ferguson was Virginia’s solicitor general, and an aide to former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He also clerked under a federal appeals court judge and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.