A Strange Vibration? The Uncertain Future of California Antitrust Law

The California Law Revision Commission released its Tentative Recommendation on Single Firm Conduct to the California Legislature. This highly anticipated proposal outlines a sweeping new antitrust enforcement model that departs sharply from the federal approach to unilateral conduct under the Sherman Act.

Beyond imposing restrictions on firms that lack any actual or attempted monopoly power, the Recommendation abandons the consumer welfare standard in favor of a framework that reorients antitrust enforcement toward broader social and political objectives, including fairness, democratic governance, and labor protections. It also mandates that California courts radically depart from the legal standards traditionally used to evaluate exclusionary conduct, including for predatory pricing and refusals to deal.

California has also enacted major changes to its treatment of collusive conduct, becoming only the second state, after New York, to ban the use and distribution of common pricing algorithms, while simultaneously lowering the standard for proving an anticompetitive agreement.

Please join ITIF’s Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy for a virtual panel featuring leading experts who will discuss the future of California's antitrust laws, their implications for national innovation and competition, and how these developments fit into the broader antitrust policy debate.

Questions for the speakers? Ask on Slido.