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andrew ferguson
Lina Khan Calls Republican FTC's Decision to Drop PepsiCo Suit 'Disturbing Behavior'
"This meritless dismissal is a win for monopolists and billionaires," said the senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project.
May 23, 2025
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday dismissed a price discrimination lawsuit against the drink and food giant PepsiCo, a move that former FTC Chair Lina Khan, who served under former President Joe Biden, called "disturbing behavior."
The lawsuit, filed only a few days before U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House, accused PepsiCo of providing a big box retailer customer, Walmart, with pricing advantages, while increasing prices for competing customers and retailers.
"This lawsuit would've protected families from paying higher prices at the grocery store and stopped conduct that squeezes small businesses and communities across America," Khan wrote on X on Thursday. "Dismissing it is a gift to giant retailers as they gear up to hike prices."
The three members of the FTC, all Republicans, voted 3-0 to drop the suit. Current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, who was named chairman by Trump, cast the lawsuit as a "nakedly political effort to commit this administration to pursuing little more than a hunch that Pepsi had violated the law." He also said that the FTC under Biden "rushed to authorize the case." Ferguson also opposed the lawsuit when the FTC first voted to pursue it.
Antimonopoly groups were quick to criticize Thursday's move.
"This meritless dismissal is a win for monopolists and billionaires," said Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, in a statement on Thursday. "Adding insult to injury, the agency dropped the case just one day before the parties were due to justify extensive redactions in the complaint, denying the public the ability to review the facts and judge the merits for themselves. This is a corporate pardon for Walmart and PepsiCo."
Open Markets legal director Sandeep Vaheesan said the move illustrates that despite their rhetoric, the current FTC commissioners are "not willing to faithfully apply the law enacted by Congress."
Stacy Mitchell, co-director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which is an advocate for independent businesses, called it "effectively an endorsement of the predatory tactics Walmart uses to crush local grocery sores, create food deserts, and drive up prices."
The agency had sued PepsiCo under the Robinson-Patman Act, a 1936 law intended to prevent price discrimination but has been little used in recent decades.
The announcement of the dropped lawsuit came the same day it was reported that the FTC is investigating the progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America over potential coordination with other groups, including the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which was a World Federation of Advertiser initiative. Media Matters president Angelo Carusone confirmed in a statement to Axios that the investigation is over claims Media Matters and other groups coordinated advertising boycotts of the social media site X.
X's owner, billionaire Elon Musk, who has played a core role in the Trump administration, has ongoing lawsuits against both the World Federation of Advertisers and Media Matters.
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Dems Demand Probe of Companies Using Trump Tariffs as 'Excuse to Price Gouge'
"The new tariffs have created a cloud of uncertainty that gives companies cover to raise prices on all goods," the lawmakers wrote.
May 20, 2025
Dozens of congressional Democrats are urging the country's top antitrust enforcer to probe the extent to which big companies are taking advantage of Trump administration tariffs, or confusion around the tariffs, to boost prices, and to take action against any that are inappropriately raising prices in excess of cost increases, also known as price gouging.
In a letter sent last week, 36 Democrats asked Republican Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson to answer questions about his decision to effectively shut down an inquiry into so-called "surveillance pricing" practices—a move that, according to the outlet The Lever, has emboldened consultants who peddle surveillance pricing tools to advise companies on how to hike prices in response to tariffs, or even just the threat of tariffs.
Surveillance pricing refers to a practice when companies collect personal information like location or browsing history to set different prices for specific consumers for the same goods with the aim of generating more profit.
In January, the FTC released the initial findings of a surveillance pricing market study, and then opened up a public comment period for consumers and businesses around surveillance pricing. But the FTC under Ferguson, who replaced former Chair Lina Khan in January, shut down the comment period, which was supposed to run through mid-April.
"The message that is coming out of this administration… is that the watchdog is gone and companies feel emboldened to rip people off," a former FTC official told The Lever.
"President [Donald] Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs build an especially fertile environment for price gouging," the letter states. "The new tariffs have created a cloud of uncertainty that gives companies cover to raise prices on all goods, regardless of whether they are subject to new tariffs or whether their costs have meaningfully increased, above and beyond what is necessary to cover any cost increases."
Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) led their colleagues on the letter. A statement from Gallego's office last week framed the letter as a demand to "prevent corporations from using Trump's reckless tariffs as an excuse to price gouge hardworking Americans."
The Trump administration has imposed 10% baseline tariffs and imposed higher duties on goods coming from China. Last week, the Trump administration and China agreed to lower the tariffs they had imposed on one another. China will now be subject to a 30% tariff, whereas before many goods coming to the U.S. from China previously had at least a 145% tariff. Negotiations with other countries are ongoing.
Citing The Lever's reporting, the Democratic lawmakers are urging Ferguson to use his authority under Section 6(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act to compel big companies to report their costs and retail and wholesale prices dating back to the day after Trump was elected in November, and also to report how much tariffs have increased their costs. The group is urging the FTC to use its power to investigate and prosecute companies who are engaging in "unfair or deceptive acts" regarding commerce.
The Democrats are also demanding answers, by May 30, to a number of questions around the end of the inquiry into surveillance pricing practices, such as why Ferguson chose to close the forum for public comments early, and whether he met with any of the businesses subject to the inquiry in advance of the termination of the public comment.
The Lever reported that some large companies who were subject to the inquiry gave money to Trump's inauguration fund.
Common Dreams as reached out to the FTC and Gallego's office for comment.
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Amid Trump Tariff Chaos, DOGE 'Minions' Infiltrate Federal Trade Commission
"Corporations get let off the hook, Musk gets insider information, and the American people get hosed."
Apr 04, 2025
The latest U.S. agency in the crosshairs of billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is reportedly the Federal Trade Commission, an already-understaffed department tasked with preventing monopolistic practices and shielding consumers from corporate abuses.
Axiosreported Friday that at least two DOGE staffers "now have offices at" the FTC. According toThe Verge, two DOGE members "were spotted" at the agency's building this week and "are now listed in the FTC's internal directory."
The Verge noted that the FTC is "a fairly lean agency with fewer than 1,200 employees," a number that the Trump administration has already cut into with the firing of some of the department's consumer protection and antitrust staff.
At least two of Musk's companies, Tesla and X, have faced scrutiny in recent years from the FTC, which is now under the leadership of Trump appointee Andrew Ferguson, who previously pledged to roll back former chair Lina Khan's anti-monopoly legacy.
Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, which referred to the operatives as Musk's "minions," said Friday that "DOGE is yet again raiding a federal watchdog tasked with protecting working Americans from Wall Street and Big Tech."
"The FTC has worked to stop monopolistic mergers that would have led to higher grocery prices and is now gearing up to go to court against Meta's social media monopoly," said Peterson-Cassin. "It's no surprise that at this moment, while the economy is in freefall and fraud is on the rise, DOGE is choosing to raid the federal watchdog that protects everyday Americans and threatens corporate monopolies and grifters."
News of DOGE staffers' infiltration of the FTC came as Trump's sweeping new tariffs continued to cause global economic turmoil and heightened concerns that companies in the U.S. will use the tariffs as a new excuse to jack up prices and pad their bottom lines.
Ferguson pledged in a social media post Thursday that under his leadership, the FTC "will be watching closely" to ensure companies don't view Trump's tariffs "as a green light for price fixing or any other unlawful behavior."
But Trump has hobbled the agency—and prompted yet another legal fight—by firing its two Democratic commissioners, a move that sparked fury and has already impacted the FTC's ability to pursue cases against large corporations.
Peterson-Cassin said Friday that "the only winners" of DOGE's targeting of the FTC "are Trump's billionaire besties like [Meta CEO] Mark Zuckerberg and especially Musk, who now stands to gain access to confidential financial information about every company ever investigated by the FTC, including the auto manufacturers, aerospace firms, internet providers, tech companies, and banks that directly compete with his own companies."
"Corporations get let off the hook, Musk gets insider information, and the American people get hosed," Peterson-Cassin added.
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