Press Releases

Washington, D.C. — Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-05) this week introduced the Competitive Prices Act, legislation that would make it easier to hold companies accountable for illegally raising prices, restricting wages, or creating artificial shortages of goods and services. The bill works to remedy the impact of misguided court decisions over the past 20 years, which have undermined the ability of both federal enforcement agencies and private parties to sue corporations for violating antitrust laws.

Rep. Scanlon has been a staunch advocate for legislative reform to address predatory business practices that boost corporate profits at the expense of consumers. Proving illegal collusion between corporations historically required evidence that two or more firms had explicitly agreed to coordinate price changes. However, with more industries becoming dominated by just a few firms, companies are able to coordinate price increases to match those of their competitors without the presence of an explicit agreement. 

“Americans already struggle to afford groceries, rent, and home appliances. While the President’s disastrous economic policies are partially to blame, corporate greed and price fixing are also central to the growing cost of living crisis Americans face,” said Rep. Scanlon. “Limited competition allows big business to informally conspire to raise prices on consumers. Congress must use its power to correct caselaw that has prevented effective antitrust enforcement that would stop this illegal behavior. The Competitive Prices Act would increase accountability for companies that manipulate markets to soak consumers.”

"When the entire marketplace is rigged to allow competitors to charge the same inflated price, that's not competition. That's coordination," said Lee Hepner, Senior Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. "What the law used to condemn as illegal price fixing has been supplanted by covert data exchanges and shared pricing algorithms that conceal rather than expose the root cause of higher prices and artificial shortages. The Competitive Prices Act re-establishes guardrails to prevent a culture of casual collusion. Americans shouldn't need a smoking-gun email to prove they're being ripped off."

"This is about whether families have a fair shot, either in the marketplace itself or in court," Hepner continued. "When companies can coordinate to raise the price of putting food on your table or keeping a roof over your head, and the law says there's nothing anyone can do about it, something is broken. This bill starts to fix it."

"All too often, complaints alleging price fixing are dismissed prematurely. Decades of harmful caselaw has allowed anticompetitive behavior to go unchecked, raising prices for consumers and stifling entrepreneurship in consolidated markets,” said Deborah Elman, President of the Committee to Support the Antitrust Laws. “We applaud Representative Scanlon for introducing the Competitive Prices Act, which will further empower public and private enforcers to bring cases against illegal price fixing and make markets fairer for consumers and small businesses."

As pricing algorithms continue to proliferate at grocery stores, e-commerce websites, and among landlords, the Competitive Prices Act takes an important step to undo the harmful precedent of Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, removing legal barriers that block meritorious lawsuits by DOJ, FTC, and American consumers affected by artificially high prices. 

Find the full bill text here.

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