Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1776, the COMPETE Act, into law, updating California's antitrust statutes to allow the state attorney general to challenge anticompetitive conduct by a single dominant company.
For more than a century, California's Cartwright Act prohibited anticompetitive conduct only when two or more companies were involved, forcing prosecutors to bring monopoly cases in federal court under the Sherman Act. The new law allows monopolization and monopsonization claims to be brought in state court under decades of Cartwright Act case law.
"The COMPETE Act will arm my office with a new, important tool to go after anticompetitive conduct by a single firm and protect workers, consumers, and small businesses," Attorney General Rob Bonta said. He noted that vigorous antitrust enforcement was "especially amid a crisis of affordability" and that states had proven to be "a formidable and important line of defense" against antitrust violations that raise consumer costs.
Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who introduced the legislation, said the law gave government "a responsibility to step in" when large corporations use market power to crush competitors rather than competing on product quality or service. She cited the bill as protecting small businesses, workers and consumers from predatory practices.
Bonta said the California Department of Justice had launched an antitrust complaint form for residents to report potentially illegal anticompetitive conduct. He cited recent enforcement actions, including a jury verdict in April finding Live Nation/Ticketmaster liable for anticompetitive conduct; a $700 million settlement with Google over Play Store practices limiting consumer choice; and ongoing litigation against Nexstar/Tegna, Amazon and RealPage.