Trump Expected to Shift Course on Antitrust, Stop Google Breakup

The Google logo is seen on the Google house at CES 2024, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 10, 2024. (Reuters)
The Google logo is seen on the Google house at CES 2024, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 10, 2024. (Reuters)
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Trump Expected to Shift Course on Antitrust, Stop Google Breakup

The Google logo is seen on the Google house at CES 2024, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 10, 2024. (Reuters)
The Google logo is seen on the Google house at CES 2024, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 10, 2024. (Reuters)

Donald Trump will likely dial back some of the antitrust policies pursued under the administration of President Joe Biden, potentially including a bid to break up Alphabet's Google over its dominance in online search, experts said.

Trump is expected to continue cases against Big Tech, several of which began in his first term, but his recent skepticism about a potential Google breakup highlights the power he will hold over how those cases are run.

"If you do that, are you going to destroy the company? What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it's more fair," he said at an event in Chicago in October, Reuters reported.

The US Department of Justice is currently pursuing two antimonopoly cases against Google - one over search and another over advertising technology, as well as a case against Apple . The US Federal Trade Commission is suing Meta Platforms and Amazon.com.

The DOJ has laid out a range of potential remedies in the search case, including making Google divest parts of its business such as the Chrome Web browser and ending agreements that make it the default search engine on devices like Apple's iPhone.

But the trial over those fixes will not happen until April 2025, with a final ruling likely in August. That gives Trump and the DOJ time to change course if they choose, said William Kovacic, a law professor at George Washington University.

"He is certainly in the position to control the DOJ's disposition of the remedies phase," said Kovacic, who chaired the Federal Trade Commission under then-president George W. Bush.

Trump is also likely to pull back on some policies that have irritated dealmakers under the Biden administration, attorneys said. One is a reluctance to settle with merging companies, which was previously common and let companies address competition problems that agencies raised about deals by taking actions like selling part of the business.

The FTC and DOJ would likely scrap merger review guidelines crafted under Biden, said Jon Dubrow, a partner at law firm McDermott Will & Emery.

"The 2023 merger guidelines were very hostile to mergers and acquisitions," he said, echoing a view widely held on Wall Street.

The FTC's ban on most noncompete clauses in employer-employee contracts could be more vulnerable to a lawsuit brought by the US Chamber of Commerce, if the FTC votes not to defend it.

About 30 million people, or 20% of US workers, have signed noncompetes, according to the FTC. The agency is currently appealing a court ruling that blocked the rule.

But such actions to dismantle the work of FTC Chair Lina Khan will depend on a Trump-appointed replacement being confirmed to give the bipartisan five-member commission a Republican majority.

Khan's initiatives focused on what she saw as societal harms caused by unchecked corporate consolidation, drawing praise from both Democrats and some Republicans, including Vice President-elect JD Vance. But some in the business and legal communities have criticized her approach as too aggressive.

Trump is not expected to drastically curtail antitrust enforcement, however. A similar number of merger cases was brought under his first term as during the first two years of the Biden administration, according to an analysis by the Sheppard Mullin law firm.



Nintendo Switch Software to Be Playable on Successor Device

A logo of Nintendo is seen at a store in Shibuya district in Tokyo November 5, 2024. (AFP)
A logo of Nintendo is seen at a store in Shibuya district in Tokyo November 5, 2024. (AFP)
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Nintendo Switch Software to Be Playable on Successor Device

A logo of Nintendo is seen at a store in Shibuya district in Tokyo November 5, 2024. (AFP)
A logo of Nintendo is seen at a store in Shibuya district in Tokyo November 5, 2024. (AFP)

Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said on Wednesday that software for the company's Switch console would be playable on the successor device.

The Kyoto-based gaming company has said it plans to make an announcement about a successor device during the financial year ending March 2025 but has not provided further details.

"Nintendo Switch is currently being played with by many customers so we decided it would be optimal for them to be able to play their Switch software on the successor model," Furukawa said.

"Customers will be able to enjoy the games they own and choose their next title from the lineup of games already on the market," Furukawa told a management policy briefing.

Offering backwards compatibility could help encourage consumers to transition to the new device and boost the appeal of existing software.

"It's not a big surprise but might be another hint the next device will be similar to the current one," said Serkan Toto, founder of the Kantan Games consultancy.

Nintendo has sold more than 1.3 billion software units for the Switch, which is in its eighth year on the market and has an install base of more than 145 million units.

The Kyoto-based gaming company has had success in extending the lifecycle of the hybrid home-portable Switch with hit games and a series of hardware refreshes.

Hardware sales are losing steam, with Nintendo on Tuesday cutting its full-year sales Switch forecast by 7% to 12.5 million units ahead of the key year-end shopping season.

"We are not surprised by the miss on the (hardware) side, given that Nintendo's target markets appear fairly saturated in most geographies," Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a client note.

"Software sales picked up in 2Q and are expected to continue in 3Q," Goyal wrote.

Nintendo sold 39.6 million software units in the second quarter ended September, a 29% increase compared to three months earlier.

The company's shares climbed 6% in Tokyo, compared to a 3% rise in the benchmark index.