United States of America: Rejection of Bill S933A by Assembly

On 5 January 2022, the New York State Assembly returned S933A ("Twenty-First Century Anti-Trust Act") back to the New York State Senate after failing to pass it. The Act aims to amend antitrust rules, lowering the threshold constituting dominant market power (from 70% to 40%) and expanding the catalogue of anti-competitive behaviour. Abuse of a dominant position is defined more closely, while the otherwise necessary definition of the relevant market is made optional if direct evidence for abuse of dominance can be given to the court. The motivations for the change included antitrust concerns in the digital economy, especially platform providers. The Bill also makes it possible to file a class-action lawsuit pursuant to the state antitrust law. Finally, individuals are sanctioned USD 1 million for anti-competitive multilateral conduct and monopolization, while the sanction for corporations is set at USD 10 million.