Goodlatte and Marino Applaud FTC for Heeding Calls to Issue Section 5 Guidance

Washington, D.C.— House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law Chairman Tom Marino (R-Pa.) issued the following statement following Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairwoman Edith Ramirez’s announcement that the FTC is issuing guidance on its unfair methods of competition authority contained in section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act): “Today, for the first time in over 100 years, the FTC has voluntarily announced rules of the road for its exercise of section 5 authority over unfair methods of competition. This historic action comes on the heels of the Committee’s repeated demands that the FTC provide guidance on this authority. This is a good first step and we are pleased that the FTC has finally heeded the Committee’s calls for guidance. However, we will vigilantly monitor the manner in which the FTC applies its guidance and evaluate whether additional action is necessary to ensure that the FTC administers our antitrust laws in a transparent, stable, fair, and predictable manner and that it does not exceed its statutory authority.” Background Since the enactment of the FTC Act in 1914, the FTC has never issued guidance regarding whether, and to what extent, its section 5 unfair methods of competition authority reaches beyond the confines of the Clayton Act and Sherman Act.  On October 23, 2013, Chairman Goodlatte led a letter to the FTC urging it to issue section 5 guidance. Additionally, this issue was one of the primary topics covered in the Committee’s two most recent oversight hearings of the antitrust enforcement agencies, available here and here.