A bill to update the antitrust laws in the nation’s most populous state faces a critical legislative hearing this week. At a time when California is among the states being relied upon as a substitute for proper antitrust enforcement, which is moribund at the federal level thanks to Trump administration corruption, advocates say the state must have a full suite of tools to succeed.
The bill, known as the Compete Act (AB 1776), will get heard in the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. It would fix a defect in the state’s antitrust law, the Cartwright Act: namely, that it does not cover single-firm conduct. Currently, the law can only be applied to coordinated conduct by multiple firms to monopolize an industry. But the new language affirms that “it is unlawful for one or more persons” to “unreasonably restrain trade” or “monopolize or monopsonize, attempt to monopolize or monopsonize, maintain a monopoly or monopsony, or combine or conspire with another person to monopolize or monopsonize any part of trade or commerce.” Given that the quintessential monopoly is a single firm, it’s a logical update.
Restrictions on single-firm conduct would allow individual would-be monopolists to be sued under state law. That would include Silicon Valley–based tech firms like Google, Apple, and Meta, all of which have faced monopolization cases at the federal level; Google has been found guilty of monopolization twice. Real estate firms like algorithmic price coordinator RealPage, grocers with local footprints like Kroger and Albertsons (which tried to merge in 2024), home insurance companies colluding to deny fire coverage in the state, and Hollywood studios that could be scrutinized over tying together distribution and production would be at greater risk from a souped-up Cartwright Act. |
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