On May 15, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina M. Khan appeared before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government to discuss the agency’s FY 2025 budget request and ongoing work to promote open, competitive markets and protect American consumers and businesses from fraud.

In her testimony, FTC lawyer Chair Khan detailed how the FTC is using its current funding and the value it provides to the American people. In FY 2023, every $1 of the FTC’s costs returned an estimated $14 in benefits to American consumers through its consumer protection and competition law enforcement efforts, according to Khan.

As the nation’s primary consumer protection agency, the FTC works to fight fraud,junk fees, and related harms affecting consumers; combat opioid recovery fraud and other health fraud; stand up for all consumers, including older adults, servicemembers, and historically underserved communities; protect privacy and data security; and ensure that domestic manufacturers, independent repairers, and other small businesses have a chance to compete fairly.

On the competition side, the agency has prioritized its limited resources to target the root causes of anticompetitive conduct and tackle the most significant harms across markets, particularly by dominant firms whose business practices affect many Americans.

For FY 2025, the Commission has requested $535 million.

This increase would help fund mandatory FY 2024 and anticipated FY 2025 pay increases and other inflationary non-pay expenses, as well as critical IT investments needed for the FTC to continue its enforcement work in an era of big data.

Since Khan last testified before the Subcommittee in April 2023, the agency has, without limitation:

• Finalized a rule to ban noncompete clauses, which would purportedly raise workers’ wages by $524, create over 8,500 new businesses, and lead to between 17,000 and 29,000 more patents annually;
• Proposed a rule to ban junk fees;
• Challenged the largest supermarket merger in U.S. history, alleging that it would raise grocery prices and reduce wages for hundreds of thousands of workers;
• Uncovered evidence of an oil executive allegedly attempting to collude to reduce output, which would result in Americans paying higher prices at the pump;
• Ordered data brokers to stop selling consumers’ sensitive geolocation data that can reveal which doctors they visit, where they worship, and where they live; and
• Continued to hold companies accountable—including through record-setting penalties—when they deceive the public about their products being “made in the USA.”

The FTC recognizes the value and importance of deepening its collaboration and partnerships with other government entities to promote fair competition across the economy. As part of the whole-of-government effort to protect consumers and competition and to further the FTC’s policy research and development, this year the agency has launched two separate RFIs with other government agencies and issued a comment in response to another agency’s Notice of Inquiry.

The FTC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) jointly issued an RFI to understand how the practices of two types of pharmaceutical drug middlemen groups—group purchasing organizations and drug wholesalers—may be contributing to generic drug shortages.

In addition, the FTC, DOJ’s Antitrust Division, and HHS jointly launched a cross-government public inquiry into private equity and other corporations’ increasing control over health care. The FTC and the DOJ’s Antitrust Division also jointly submitted a public comment to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) urging it to consider the competitive risks of common ownership when assessing acquisitions involving less than a controlling interest in competing firms.

Consult with an experienced FTC compliance attorney to discuss FTC policy initiatives, and how the FTC engages with other federal agencies as well as state and international enforcement partners on both policy initiatives and enforcement matters.