2024 US Elections: Trump likely to stop Google breakup, change course on antitrust policies

Donald Trump will likely dial back some of antitrust policies pursued under ministration of President Joe Biden , potentially including a bid to break up Alphabet's Google over its dominance in online search, experts said.

Trump is expected to continue cases against Big Tech, several of which began in his first term, but his recent skepticism about a potential Google breakup highlights power he will hold over how those cases are run.

"If you do that, are you going to destroy company? What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it's more fair," he said at an event in Chicago in October.

U.S. Department of Justice is currently pursuing two antimopoly cases against Google - one over search and ar over vertising techlogy, as well as a case against Apple . U.S. Federal Tre Commission is suing Meta Platforms and Amazon .com.

DOJ has laid out a range of potential remedies in search case, including making Google divest parts of its business such as Chrome Web browser and ending agreements that make it default search engine on devices like Apple's iPhone.

But trial over those fixes will t happen until April 2025, with a final ruling likely in August. That gives Trump and DOJ time to change course if y choose, said William Kovacic, a law professor at George Washington University.

"He is certainly in position to control DOJ's disposition of remedies phase," said Kovacic, who chaired Federal Tre Commission under n-president George W. Bush.

Trump is also likely to pull back on some policies that have irritated dealmakers under Biden ministration, attorneys said. One is a reluctance to settle with merging companies, which was previously common and let companies dress competition problems that ncies raised about deals by taking actions like selling part of business.

FTC and DOJ would likely scrap merger review guidelines crafted under Biden, said Jon Dubrow, a partner at law firm McDermott Will & Emery.

" 2023 merger guidelines were very hostile to mergers and acquisitions," he said, echoing a view widely held on Wall Street.

FTC's ban on most ncompete clauses in employer-employee contracts could be more vulnerable to a lawsuit brought by U.S. Chamber of Commerce, if FTC votes t to defend it.

About 30 million people, or 20% of U.S. workers, have signed n-competes, according to FTC. ncy is currently appealing a court ruling that blocked rule.

But such actions to dismantle work of FTC Chair Lina Khan will depend on a Trump-appointed replacement being confirmed to give bipartisan five-member commission a Republican majority.

Khan's initiatives focused on what she saw as societal harms caused by unchecked corporate consolidation, drawing praise from both Democrats and some Republicans, including Vice President-elect JD Vance. But some in business and legal communities have criticized her approach as too aggressive.

Trump is t expected to drastically curtail antitrust enforcement, however. A similar number of merger cases was brought under his first term as during first two years of Biden ministration, according to an analysis by Sheppard Mullin law firm.