Trump appoints Mark Meador to head the Federal Trade Commission

President-elect Donald Trump has chosenMark Meador, a former aide to Utah Senator Mike Lee, as commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, the agency responsible for competition enforcement and consumer protection. Meador, Bloomberg reports, is a veteran of both the FTC and the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, and spent three years as an advisor to Lee, the Republican politician who holds the top spot on the important Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, before starting a law firm with a former colleague of the Department's outgoing Antitrust Chief, Jonathan Kanter. Meador also worked with Kanter at the law firm Paul Weiss.

Meador, already running to become a minority member of the FTC under President Joe Biden, is considered a populist and pro-enforcement Republican, particularly with regard to the technology industry. He drafted a bill for Lee that would have forced the break-up of Google's advertising technology business, an issue currently the subject of a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit. Earlier in his career, Meador worked for about five years on antitrust cases at the FTC. He then worked at the Justice Department's Antitrust Division for more than two years before moving to Lee's office.

Also in the antitrust sphere, the new US president has chosen Andrew Ferguson, a Republican member of the US Federal Trade Commission, to serve as chairman of the agency, a politically charged role currently held by Lina Khan. Khan's replacement at the FTC is likely to mean that the commission will operate with a lighter touch when it comes to antitrust enforcement. The new chairman is expected to appoint the new directors of the FTC's Antitrust and Consumer Protection Divisions.

"Andrew has a proven track record of countering Big Tech censorship and protecting free speech in our great country," Trump explained in a statement posted on his Truth social network on 10 December. "Andrew will be the most pro-American and pro-innovation FTC chairman in the history of our country."

Ferguson, one of two Republicans in the antitrust and consumer protection agency, joined the FTC last April. He previously served as Virginia's attorney general, representing the state in important lawsuits. As FTC commissioner, Ferguson dissented from several of Khan's regulatory initiatives, including banning non-compete clauses in employment contracts and rules to make it easier to cancel subscriptions.