Lina Khan

American legal scholar and jurist (born 1989)

Lina Khan
Chair of the Federal Trade Commission
Incumbent
Assumed office
June 15, 2021
PresidentJoe Biden
Preceded byRebecca Slaughter (acting)
Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission
Incumbent
Assumed office
June 15, 2021
PresidentJoe Biden
Preceded byJoseph Simons
Personal details
Born (1989-03-03) March 3, 1989 (age 35)
London, England, UK
Spouse
Shah Ali
​
(m. 2018)​
Children1
EducationWilliams College (BA)
Yale University (JD)
SignatureLina Khan signature

Lina M. Khan (born March 3, 1989) is a British-born American legal scholar serving as chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) since 2021. She is also an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School.

While a student at Yale Law School, she became known for her work in antitrust and competition law in the United States after publishing the influential essay "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox".[1]

President Joe Biden nominated Khan to the FTC in March 2021, and following her confirmation, she took the chair in June 2021. During her tenure, the FTC has pushed to ban non-compete agreements, filed lawsuits against health care companies engaging in anti-competitive practices, and launched a high-profile lawsuit against Amazon.[2] In 2022, the FTC and the DOJ's anti-trust division blocked a record number of mergers on anti-trust grounds.[3]

Early life and education

Khan was born on March 3, 1989, in London, to a British family of Pakistani origin.[4][5] Khan grew up in Golders Green in the London Borough of Barnet. Her parents, a management consultant and an employee of Thomson Reuters, moved to the United States when she was 11 years old. The family settled in Mamaroneck, New York, where she and her two siblings attended public school.[6][7]

At Mamaroneck High School, Khan was involved in the student newspaper.[8] After high school, Khan studied political science at Williams College in Massachusetts. She was also an undergraduate visiting student at Exeter College, Oxford for a term.[9] Khan served as editor of the Williams College student newspaper and wrote her senior thesis on Hannah Arendt. She graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts.

Advocacy and academic career

From 2010 to 2014, Khan worked at the New America Foundation, where she engaged in anti-monopoly research and writing for Barry Lynn at the Open Markets Program.[6] Lynn was looking for a researcher without a background in economics, and he began critiquing market consolidation with Khan's help.[6]

As a result of her work at the Open Markets Institute, Khan was offered a reporting position at The Wall Street Journal, where she would have covered commodities. During the same period, Khan was offered admission into Yale Law School. Describing it as "a real 'choose the path' moment", Khan ultimately chose to enroll at Yale.[6]

Khan served as a submissions editor for the Yale Journal on Regulation. She went on to graduate from Yale in 2017 with a Juris Doctor degree.[4][10]

"Amazon's Antitrust Paradox"

Khan in 2016, speaking on a panel about Amazon and antitrust law

In 2017, during her third year at Yale Law School, the Yale Law Journal published Khan's student article "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox".[11] The article made a significant impact in American legal and business circles, and the New York Times described it as "reframing decades of monopoly law".[4]

In the article, Khan argued that the current American antitrust law framework, which focuses on keeping consumer prices down, cannot account for the anticompetitive effects of platform-based business models such as that of Amazon. The title of Khan's piece was a reference to Robert Bork's 1978 book The Antitrust Paradox, which established the consumer-welfare standard that Khan critiqued.[6] She proposed alternative frameworks for antitrust policy, including "restoring traditional antitrust and competition policy principles or applying common carrier obligations and duties."[11][6]

For "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox", Khan won the Antitrust Writing Award for "Best Academic Unilateral Conduct Article" in 2018,[12] the Israel H. Peres Prize by Yale Law School,[12] and the Michael Egger Prize from the Yale Law Journal.[12]

Reception

The article was met with both acclaim and criticism. As of September 2018, it received 146,255 hits, "a runaway best-seller in the world of legal treatises," according to the New York Times.[4] Makan Delrahim, then serving as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division under Donald Trump, praised Khan for her “fresh thinking on how our legal tools apply to new digital platforms.”[13]

Joshua Wright, who served on the FTC from 2013 to 2015, derided her work as "hipster antitrust" and argued it "reveal[ed] a profound lack of understanding of the consumer welfare model and the rule of reason framework."[14] Herbert Hovenkamp wrote that Khan's claims are "technically undisciplined, untestable, and even incoherent", and that her work "never explains how a nonmanufacturing retailer such as Amazon could ever recover its investment in below cost pricing by later raising prices, and even disputes that raising prices to higher levels ever needs to be a part of the strategy, thus indicating that it is confusing predation with investment."[15]

Open Markets Institute and Columbia Law School

After graduating from law school, Khan worked as legal director at the Open Markets Institute. The institute split from New America after Khan and her team criticized Google's market power, prompting pressure from Google, a funder of New America.[16] During her time at OMI, Khan met with Senator Elizabeth Warren to discuss anti-monopolistic policy ideas.[17]

Initially planning to clerk for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Khan joined Columbia Law School as an academic fellow, where she pursued research and scholarship on antitrust law and competition policy, especially relating to digital platforms.[12][18] She published “The Separation of Platforms and Commerce” in the Columbia Law Review, making the case for structural separations that prohibit dominant intermediaries from entering lines of business that place them in direct competition with the businesses dependent on their networks.[19] In July 2020, Khan joined the school's faculty as an associate professor of law.[20]

Khan has described herself as belonging to the New Brandeis movement, a political movement that seeks a revival in antitrust enforcement.[21]

Early government service

In 2018, Khan worked as a legal fellow at the Federal Trade Commission in the office of Commissioner Rohit Chopra.[22] In 2019, she began serving as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, where she led the congressional investigation into digital markets.[23]

Chair of the FTC

On March 22, 2021, Joe Biden announced that he was nominating Khan to be a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.[24][25] On June 15, 2021, her nomination was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 69 to 28.[26] Khan was confirmed with bipartisan support, mainly attributed to her "influential anti-Amazon views" being widely reflected in Congress.[27] Biden then appointed her chairperson of the FTC.[28] Upon taking office, Khan became the third Asian-American to serve on the FTC, after Dennis Yao (who served from 1991 to 1994) and her former boss Rohit Chopra (who served from 2018 to 2021).[29]

Following her appointment as chairperson, both Amazon[30] and Facebook[31] filed petitions with the FTC seeking her recusal from investigations of the companies, suggesting that her past criticism of the companies left her unable to be impartial. However, according to legal scholar Eleanor Fox, the standard for recusal is very high and unlikely to be met for Khan.[32] Senator Elizabeth Warren and other supporters of Khan argued that the recusal demands amount to an attempt by these companies to intimidate Khan in order to curtail regulatory scrutiny.[33]

According to leaked documents, the FTC's Designated Agency Ethics Official (DAEO), Lorielle Pankey, did not believe Khan had violated any ethical standards,[34] but still recommended that she recuse herself from the case with Meta Platforms to avoid the appearance of bias; this recommendation was rejected by Khan and the FTC.[35] The official who made the recommendation was later revealed to have owned Meta stock at that time, prompting concerns about Pankey's own conduct.[36] In response, Khan and the FTC released a unanimous statement in support of Pankey.[37] Earlier in February 2023, FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson announced her resignation from the agency citing her opposition to Khan's leadership, including her refusal to recuse from FTC's lawsuit against Meta.[38]

On July 13, 2023, Khan appeared before a Republican-led House committee that questioned her leadership of the agency. The hearing took place shortly after the FTC lost a case blocking the Microsoft takeover of Activision Blizzard.[39][40] Democrats on the committee defended Khan and the actions of the agency, arguing that she was taking steps that protected user privacy.[41]

On February 22, 2024, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee released an interim report alleging abuse of power and waste of resources.[42][43]

Legacy and influence

In 2018 Politico described Khan as "a leader of a new school of antitrust thought" as part of its "Politico 50" list of influential thinkers.[12] New York magazine said she was "indisputably the most powerful figure in the anti-monopoly vanguard".[44] She was also listed as one of Foreign Policy's "Global Thinkers,"[45] Prospect's "Top 50 Thinkers,"[46] Wired's WIRED25,[47] the National Journal 50,[48] Washingtonian's list of most influential women,[49] and Time's "Next Generation Leaders."[50]

Khan's practices at the FTC have been met with both praise and criticism. Ankush Khadori of New York wrote in December 2023 that failed lawsuits against Meta and Microsoft led to reduced morale and high attrition among FTC employees.[51] However, Khan has gained praise for her tactics from members of both the Democratic and Republican parties. GOP Senator J. D. Vance from Ohio cited Khan's campaigns against large technology companies as a success for anti-trust efforts in the US, beliefs echoed by former Democratic representative David Cicilline, who expressed his confidence that Khan would ultimately prevail against large companies.[52][53]

Personal life

Khan is married to Shah Ali, a cardiologist at Columbia University in Manhattan.[4] In January 2023, Khan gave birth to their first child.[54]

Bibliography

  • Khan, Lina M. (January 2017). "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox". Yale Law Journal. 126 (3): 710–805. Archived from the original on April 23, 2021.
  • ——— (March 1, 2018). "The New Brandeis Movement: America's Antimonopoly Debate". Journal of European Competition Law & Practice. 9 (3): 131–132. doi:10.1093/jeclap/lpy020.
  • ——— (June 4, 2018). "The Ideological Roots of America's Market Power Problem". The Yale Law Journal Forum. 127. Archived from the original on April 20, 2021.
  • ——— (July 2018). "Download Sources of Tech Platform Power" (PDF). Georgetown Law Technology Review. 2: 325–334.
  • ——— (May 2019). "The Separation of Platforms and Commerce" (PDF). Columbia Law Review. 119 (4): 973–1098. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 10, 2021.
  • ——— (July 2019). "Competition Issues in Digital Markets". Competition Law & Policy Debate. 5 (2): 66–70. doi:10.4337/clpd.2019.02.09. ISSN 2405-481X.
  • ——— (Winter 2019). "Comment on Daniel A. Crane: A Premature Postmortem on the Chicago School of Antitrust". Business History Review. 93 (4): 777–779. doi:10.1017/S000768051900151X. S2CID 214322820.
  • ——— (March 2020). "The End of Antitrust History Revisited [reviews]" (PDF). Harvard Law Review. 133 (5): 1655–1683. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 18, 2020.

Co-authored works

References

  1. ^ Khan, Lina M. (January 2017). "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox". Yale Law Journal. 126 (3): 564–907. Archived from the original on April 5, 2017. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  2. ^ Sisco, Josh (December 22, 2023). "'She was put in this role to shake things up'". POLITICO.
  3. ^ "FTC's Khan and DOJ's Kanter Beat Back Deals at Fastest Clip in Decades". Bloomberg.com. December 18, 2023. Retrieved December 25, 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e Streitfeld, David (September 7, 2018). "Amazon's Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 9, 2018. Retrieved September 8, 2018.
  5. ^ Khan, Lina (March 28, 2021). "Senate Commerce Committee Nominee Questionnaire, 117th Congress". United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Archived from the original on April 21, 2021.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "Lina Khan's Battle to Rein in Big Tech". The New Yorker. November 25, 2021. Archived from the original on November 29, 2021. Retrieved November 29, 2021.
  7. ^ "The education of Lina Khan, Big Tech's biggest critic". U2B. June 25, 2021. Archived from the original on January 10, 2023. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  8. ^ Mohn, Tanya (October 17, 2004). "A Tempest In a Coffee Shop". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 10, 2023. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  9. ^ "Exeter College Association: Register 2008" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on November 28, 2022. Retrieved November 28, 2022.
  10. ^ "Title Page". Yale Journal on Regulation. 33: [i]. 2016. Archived from the original on February 10, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
  11. ^ a b Khan, Lina M. (January 2017). "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox". Yale Law Journal. 126 (3): 564–907. Archived from the original on April 5, 2017. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  12. ^ a b c d e "Lina Khan". Source of the Week. January 4, 2019. Archived from the original on February 25, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2019.
  13. ^ Scola, Nancy (July 9, 2018). "FTC Democrat hires tech industry critic who's taken aim at Amazon". POLITICO. Archived from the original on January 10, 2023. Retrieved January 10, 2023.
  14. ^ "Requiem for a Paradox: The Dubious Rise and Inevitable Fall of Hipster Antitrust". Arizona State Law Journal. May 7, 2019. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  15. ^ Hovenkamp, Herbert (December 1, 2018). "Whatever Did Happen to the Antitrust Movement?". Faculty Scholarship at Penn Law. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  16. ^ Meyer, Robinson (June 12, 2018). "How to Fight Amazon (Before You Turn 29)". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on September 9, 2018. Retrieved September 8, 2018.
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  19. ^ Khan, Lina M. (2019). "The Separation of Platforms and Commerce". Columbia Law Review. 119 (4): 973. Archived from the original on April 24, 2020. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  20. ^ Columbia Law School (July 6, 2020). "Dean Gillian Lester announced that Lina Khan will join the Columbia Law faculty as an associate professor of law this fall. Khan is one of the leaders of an antitrust movement challenging some of the world's most powerful corporations". Twitter. Archived from the original on July 6, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  21. ^ Khan, Lina (March 1, 2018). "The New Brandeis Movement: America's Antimonopoly Debate". Journal of European Competition Law & Practice. 9 (3): 131–132. doi:10.1093/jeclap/lpy020. ISSN 2041-7764.
  22. ^ "About". Lina Khan. Archived from the original on September 9, 2018. Retrieved September 8, 2018.
  23. ^ Lohr, Steve (December 8, 2019). "This Man May Be Big Tech's Biggest Threat". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 24, 2020. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  24. ^ Kelly, Makena (March 22, 2021). "Biden to nominate tech antitrust pioneer Lina Khan for FTC commissioner". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on March 22, 2021. Retrieved March 22, 2021.
  25. ^ "President Biden Announces his Intent to Nominate Lina Khan for Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission". whitehouse.gov. The White House. March 22, 2021. Archived from the original on June 28, 2021. Retrieved March 22, 2021.
  26. ^ Brandom, Russell (June 15, 2021). "Tech antitrust pioneer Lina Khan confirmed as FTC commissioner". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on June 15, 2021. Retrieved June 15, 2021.
  27. ^ Brandom, Russell (June 30, 2021). "Amazon says new FTC chair shouldn't regulate it because she's too mean". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on June 30, 2021. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  28. ^ McCabe, David (June 15, 2021). "Biden Names Lina Khan, a Big-Tech Critic, as F.T.C. Chair". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 15, 2021. Retrieved June 15, 2021.
  29. ^ Birnbaum, Emily (April 21, 2021). "What to watch at Lina Khan's confirmation hearing". POLITICO. Archived from the original on February 26, 2023. Retrieved September 11, 2021.
  30. ^ Kendall, Brent (June 30, 2021). "Amazon Seeks Recusal of FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan in Antitrust Investigations of Company". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on June 30, 2021. Retrieved July 1, 2021.
  31. ^ Kendall, Brent (July 14, 2021). "Facebook Seeks FTC Chair Lina Khan's Recusal in Antitrust Case". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on July 14, 2021. Retrieved July 14, 2021 – via www.wsj.com.
  32. ^ Greene, Jay; Lerman, Rachel. "Amazon seeks recusal of FTC Chair Khan, a longtime company critic". Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 16, 2021. Retrieved July 9, 2021.
  33. ^ "Democratic senators blast Amazon, Facebook's efforts to 'bully' FTC over antitrust case". The Daily Dot. August 5, 2021. Archived from the original on September 17, 2021. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
  34. ^ Dayen, David (June 23, 2023). "Attacks on Lina Khan's Ethics Reveal Copious Amounts of Projection". The American Prospect. Archived from the original on July 15, 2023. Retrieved July 15, 2023.
  35. ^ Nylen, Leah (June 16, 2023). "Lina Khan Rejected FTC Ethics Recommendation to Recuse in Meta Case". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on July 11, 2023. Retrieved June 17, 2023.
  36. ^ Mullins, Brody (June 30, 2023). "Ethics Official Owned Meta Stock While Recommending FTC Chair Recuse Herself From Meta Case". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on July 15, 2023. Retrieved July 15, 2023.
  37. ^ "FTC Chair and Commissioners Issue Joint Statement". FTC.gov (Press release). Federal Trade Commission. June 30, 2023. Archived from the original on July 15, 2023. Retrieved July 15, 2023.
  38. ^ Kang, Cecilia (February 14, 2023). "Republican F.T.C. Commissioner Says She Plans to Resign". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on September 25, 2023. Retrieved September 29, 2023.
  39. ^ "House Republicans interrogate FTC's Khan over regulation of Big Tech". ABC News. Archived from the original on July 13, 2023. Retrieved July 13, 2023.
  40. ^ Bartz, Diane; Shepardson, David (July 13, 2023). "FTC chair defends tenure as lawmakers battle over consumer agency's impact". Reuters.com. Archived from the original on July 13, 2023. Retrieved July 13, 2023.
  41. ^ Riley, Tonya (July 13, 2023). "FTC faces pressure from Twitter, Republicans over privacy investigation". CyberScoop.com. Archived from the original on July 13, 2023. Retrieved July 13, 2023.
  42. ^ Jordan, Jim. "Abuse of power waste of resources and fear: what internal documents and testimony from career employees show about the FTC under chair Lina Khan" (PDF). judiciary.house.gov. House Judiciary Committee Republicans. Retrieved March 1, 2024.
  43. ^ Murray, Alan (February 25, 2024). "The FTC and chair Lina Khan are plagued by classic mismanagement". Fortune. Retrieved April 3, 2024.
  44. ^ Scola, Nancy (October 27, 2021). "Lina Khan Isn't Worried About Going Too Far". Intelligencer. New York. Archived from the original on November 4, 2021. Retrieved November 4, 2021.
  45. ^ "Foreign Policy's 100 Global Thinkers". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on March 28, 2021. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  46. ^ Team, Prospect. "The world's top 50 thinkers 2019". Archived from the original on August 28, 2019. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  47. ^ "WIRED25: Stories of People Who Are Racing to Save Us". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on May 11, 2020. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  48. ^ "Lina Khan – National Journal 50". nj50.nationaljournal.com. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  49. ^ "Washington's Most Powerful Women". Washingtonian. October 1, 2019. Archived from the original on May 10, 2020. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  50. ^ Semuels, Alana (October 10, 2019). "This Legal Scholar Has Some Bold Ideas For How to Take on Major Companies Like Amazon". TIME.com. Archived from the original on May 10, 2020. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
  51. ^ Khardori, Ankush (December 12, 2023). "Lina Khan's Rough Year Running the Federal Trade Commission". New York. Retrieved March 16, 2024.
  52. ^ Klar, Rebecca (February 27, 2024). "Vance: Biden FTC chief is 'doing a pretty good job'". The Hill. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
  53. ^ Jones, Callum (March 9, 2024). "'She's going to prevail': FTC head Lina Khan is fighting for an anti-monopoly America". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 12, 2024.
  54. ^ Kerr, Dara. "Lina Khan is taking swings at Big Tech as FTC chair, and changing how it does business". NPR. Archived from the original on August 10, 2023. Retrieved August 10, 2023.

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