How Johnson & Johnson is abusing bankruptcy court to protect shareholders

A jury found that J&J products gave people cancer. Now the company wants to declare bankruptcy to limit payouts. It made nearly $18 billion last year.

Eric Gardner

July 25 2023

Johnson and Johnson reached a tentative $8.9 billion agreement to compensate tens of thousands of people who claim the company’s talcum-based products gave them cancer. The agreement, which still requires approval from the bankruptcy court and plaintiffs, would be the highest-profile use of a controversial strategy that shields shareholders from the consequences of investing in companies knowingly selling harmful products.

The process is called a divisive merger, or the Texas two-step. The maneuver is named after a quirk of Texas law that allows a profitable company to split itself into two, placing all its future liabilities into a Texas-based subsidiary. The liability-ridden company then declares bankruptcy, leaving the profitable part of the company and the investors whole. “It violates the fundamental principle of bankruptcy,” Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said at a 2022 hearing on the topic.

In 2017, Koch-owned Georgia-Pacific pioneered the process. The company faced thousands of lawsuits after an appeals court found that management intentionally downplayed cancer dangers from its building products. Faced with billions of dollars of potential claims, management shifted all of the company’s assets to a new subsidiary named “New Georgia-Pacific,” They placed all of the liabilities in an entity named “Bestwall,” declaring bankruptcy a few months later.

In the four years since, New Georgia-Pacific has delivered $3 billion in dividends to Georgia-Pacific–three times what Bestwall has offered plaintiffs.

J&J is now attempting to take a stab at the maneuver.

It’s not the first time. In early 2021 the company transferred all of the company’s cancer claims to a subsidiary named LTL Management. Three days later, the new entity declared bankruptcy– pausing any ongoing litigation. In January of 2023, an Appeals court threw out the bankruptcy. They effectively said you at least have to pretend you’re in financial distress– pointing out that the new entity wasn’t insolvent, having access to $61.5 billion from J&J.

In the new filing, J&J management adjusted the paperwork and increased the payout by nearly $6 billion.

The companies argue that the Texas two-step benefits victims, allowing one bankruptcy judge to administer an orderly approach to paying out claims to tens of thousands.

Private emails tell a different story.

Michelle Ryan, a now-retired treasurer for the company, described the motivation behind the maneuver to Moody’s. “Capping our talc liability,” she wrote, “especially with the recent disappointing Supreme Court inaction.”

J&J has long faced questions about the safety of its talcum-based products. Despite asbestos naturally occurring alongside talcum, the company has long denied any link between cancer and its baby powders.

Before the last ten years, most asbestos legal claims against Johnson and Johnson failed. The World Health Organization says there is no safe level of contact with asbestos, but the substance has different impacts on different people. Most individuals exposed, even to large amounts, never develop cancer. For some, a small amount can lead to mesothelioma or ovarian cancer—years later.

To this day, the company argues the lawsuits are over a problem that doesn’t exist. “Our talc products do not contain asbestos,” Erik Haas, the vice president of litigation, told investors on last week’s earnings call, “Our talc products do not cause cancer.”

Again, Johnson and Johnson’s internal documents tell a different story.

Internal memos and reports, first published by Reuters, showed that management was aware its flagship baby powder had tested positive for small amounts of asbestos since at least the late 1950s. Rather than reformulate its product, the company denied and questioned the test results–something the company continues to this day.

In the last ten years, those memos came to light in a string of lawsuits from cancer victims. Patients no longer need to prove the direct link between Johnson and Johnson’s baby powder and cancer to juries. “The culprit wasn’t necessarily talc itself,” Reuters wrote, “but also asbestos in the talc.” The scientific community accepts that asbestos causes cancer. The company’s internal testing showed a direct link to asbestos.

In 2018 the dam broke. A Missouri jury ordered J&J to pay $4.7 billion to 22 women after it found the company’s products caused their ovarian cancer. The damages were eventually reduced to $2.1 billion on appeal—nearly $100 million per claimant. Johnson and Johnson believes it could face upwards of 100,000 claims in the future. The proposed $8.9 billion agreement would cap the company’s liability.

The Missouri case made it all the way up to the Supreme Court, where the court declined to hear the issue–upholding the previous court’s ruling and prompting the former treasurers’ email to Moody’s.

Interestingly enough, Justice Brett Kavanaugh recused himself from the case.

The reason?

His father lobbied against warning labels for talcum-based products.

This Weird Ohio Election Will Likely Decide Whether Abortion is Outlawed

Can't win? Cheat.

Andrew Rivera

July 24 2023

There’s a fight to protect abortion in Ohio that you need to know about.

Ohio voters submitted nearly twice the required signatures to put an abortion protection measure on the November ballot.

But now corrupt politicians and right-wing billionaires are trying to change election rules to stop them.

What’s happening?

Right-wing billionaires want to make it much tougher change the Ohio constitution—immediately before a vote on enshrining the right to abortion.

But new data shows Ohio voters aren’t falling for it. Only 26% support this anti-democratic measure.

Ohio Republicans are holding a special election in August, to raise the threshold of voters needed to pass a ballot initiative from 50 to 60 percent. The timing — in an off year when voters aren’t paying attention, and that seemingly arbitrary percentage increase — couldn’t be more strategic.

On the record, Republicans claim this effort to up the amendment threshold is about protecting the state’s constitution from out of state special interests.

But this claim is not only untrue, it’s hypocritical. Because out-of-state special interests are the very people spearheading this special election.

Shortly before Republicans decided to hold this election, they had outlawed August elections because of low voter turnout. They’re effectively breaking a law that they put in place by holding one.

That’s how these Republican politicians work. When the rules no longer serve their interests, they change them.

Can’t win? Cheat. It really is as simple as that.

Republican lawmakers in Ohio and across the country do not want you to make choices about your own life. And if you’re in Ohio, you will be setting the stage for how these ballot measures play out across the rest of the country.

I Used To Make $100K As A Trucker. Now I Make Minimum Wage.

How did trucking go from a high-paid, highly coveted job to an unstable and unsafe gig? In a word: deregulation.

Brooke Shuman

July 24 2023

Truckers used to make $110,000 per year on average. Now many are homeless. So what happened? We dug into it as part of our new Class Room series, which looks at how jobs that used to provide a solid, middle class life now barely provide a living.

With trucking, that story starts with deregulation. Big box stores like Walmart were allowed to crush worker power and wages across an entire industry.

Now there’s a perpetual trucker shortage as drivers get sick of low wages, long hours, and constant surveillance.

What’s happening?

Every day, long-haul trucking move freight across the country. Trucking used to be one of the highest-paid and most coveted blue-color jobs in America. Now, it’s one of the worst.

There’s currently a driver shortage–and not because there is a shortage of truckers, but because there is a shortage of jobs that allow drivers to break even. The turnover rate at most companies is well over 100%.

Long haul trucking is an $800-billion dollar industry that moves 70% of all freight in America. Without a new generation of truckers, the high turnover rates in the industry threaten our supply chains.

Teamsters Launch Massive Effort to Unionize Amazon

Amazon is the nation's largest single employer - and one of America's biggest unions is fighting to unionize the company and protect its workers.

Jordan Zakarin

July 24 2023

Amazon Teamsters’ picket line is spreading nationwide. Workers across the country are standing up to Amazon after the company fired 84 drivers for unionizing with the Teamsters.

Amazon, the nation’s largest single employer, represents the Mount Everest for the modern labor union movement.

Smaller unions have worked to organize the mega-monolith, but Amazon’s sheer size has a bigger force eyeing it as well. Enter the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The Teamsters made their first successful foray into unionizing Amazon, winning a union contract for 84 workers in Southern California in May, 2023. Amazon fired all 84 workers shortly after.

The workers were subcontracted through an Amazon Delivery Partner (DSP) called Battle-Tested Strategies (BTS).

The Teamsters’ picket began in California and continues to grow every week.

Workers are fighting back, setting up a clash between one of America’s biggest unions and largest employers.

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The Shocking Truth About Marjorie Taylor Greene’s District

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is infamous for her climate change denial — but her district is the new of a solar revolution.

July 21 2023

There’s a surprising new home for one of the largest solar panel manufacturing factories in the Western Hemisphere: Dalton, Georgia, a city known for being the long-standing carpet capital of the world and the district of none-other than far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

In 2016 and 2020, 70% of the county where Dalton is located voted for Trump. But it’s here, off of Hwy I-75, north of Atlanta and south of Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Hanwha Qcells, one of the world’s leading solar panel manufacturers, has set up shop.

You probably heard U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene went viral for accidentally praising Biden. But what you didn’t hear is that she has good reason to praise the president.

Qcells’ recent growth is due, in large part, to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA is the Biden administration’s sweeping climate and clean energy investment legislation which was signed into law last year.

The bill brought a ton of new solar manufacturing jobs to Dalton.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene voted against it.

Exclusive: Young Union Organizers At White House For Meeting With Biden And Bernie Sanders

Labor leaders at Starbucks, SEGA and more will meet with the president and Bernie Sanders today.

Jordan Zakarin

July 17 2023

President Biden will meet with young workers and union organizers at the White House on Monday, where he and Sen. Bernie Sanders will learn about the guests’ successful efforts to unionize hostile workplaces and discuss the fresh energy coursing through the American labor movement.

The meeting marks the second time that the president has invited young union activists to the White House in as many years. This year, the meeting will include workers from Starbucks, SEGA, and Minor League Baseball, whose high-profile unionization campaigns have captivated the country and brought new generations into the labor movement.

Among the guests on Monday will be Lexi Rizzo, the 25-year-old founder of Starbucks Workers United. Rizzo, who helped lead a campaign that has now organized over 300 stores, was illegally fired this spring from her store in Buffalo, NY. Her dismissal came days after Howard Schultz, the billionaire former CEO of Starbucks, was forced by Sen. Sanders to testify about the company’s rampant union-busting in a high-profile Senate hearing.

Joining Rizzo from Starbucks Workers United will be Graciela “Gracie” Nira, a union leader from San Antonio. During last year’s young labor summit, Biden met with Laura Garza, a Starbucks Workers United leader based in New York City. Her appearance at the White House sparked a furious response from the company, which demanded that Schultz be invited to meet with Biden as well.

Ultimately, it was only Sanders who extended Schultz the invite to the nation’s capital, which was followed by the threat of a subpoena in order to compel the billionaire’s Senate testimony.

They’ll be joined by Mohammad Saman, a quality assurance specialist at the video game company SEGA, where the CWA just recently won a historic first election. Delushundra “Dee” Thomas, an organizer who helped the Steelworkers beat the odds and successfully organize electric bus manufacturer Blue Bird in rural Georgia, will join as well.

The successful effort to organize the Blue Bird factory laid down an important marker as the administration’s investment into green energy and electric vehicles, through the Inflation Reduction Act, will create countless new opportunities for unions to extend their reach into the South and ensure electric vehicles are produced by union labor.

Biden is expected to reaffirm his support for union workers, which has become a core part of his administration’s identity. The President’s NLRB, while somewhat underfunded by Congress, has proven to be the most aggressive defender of workers’ rights in several generations. Under General Counsel Jennifer Abbruzzo, the NLRB has pushed to uphold long-ignored provisions of US labor law that have served to provide a legal counterbalance to the rampant illegal union-busting that has been employed by companies such as Starbucks, Amazon, and REI.

The unionization of Minor League Baseball, achieved through years of pressure and successful appeals to the Major League Players Association, represented another massive win for the labor movement. Kumar Nambiar, a pitcher for the Lansing Lugnuts and a Minor League union rep, is also slated to join the White House meeting. So are Briana Thomas, a shipping associate for eBay’s TCGPlayer who sits on her union’s bargaining committee, and Arita Acharya, a bargaining committee member for Yale grad student union that was just organized under UNITE HERE.

A number of other labor-focused administration officials will also attend the meeting: Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, White House National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard, and White House Director of Governmental Affairs Tom Perez, each of whom has been involved in shaping policy focused on the middle class.

The White House meeting comes as labor activity begins to spike for the third straight summer. In May, Biden offered his support to the 11,000 striking writers represented by the WGA. On Friday, his office provided similar sentiment for SAG-AFTRA and the 160,000 actors that stepped out on strike last week to demand better pay and control over their own likenesses.

The Greediest ‘Non-Profit’ Hospital in America

Health care giant UPMC has gotten rich by exploiting tax breaks and miring patients in medical debt.

July 14 2023

UPMC is a health care giant. It employs more than 92,000 people, has an operating revenue of roughly $26 billion, and as a “non-profit”, it’s technically supposed to provide affordable healthcare to the people who need it most.

But its flagship hospital recently made headlines for being the least charitable non-profit hospital in the country.

How did we get here?

In 1969, the tax code was modified so that a hospital didn’t have to pay taxes as long as it was “promoting health.” Charity care became optional.

So Vikas Saini and his colleagues at the Lown institute decided to take a closer look at just how far some non-profit hospitals have strayed from their original mandate of giving back. They looked at over 1,700 nonprofit hospitals nationwide and calculated what they call the “fair share” spending for each. If a hospital took more money in tax breaks than it gave back to the community, it had a fair share deficit.

UMPC’s fair share deficit? $246 million in 2020.

Meanwhile, UPMC’s former CEO made $12.9 million in 2021. In total, top executives raked in $225 million — more than double what UPMC spent on charity care that year.

A recent survey found that 36% of UPMC workers are in medical debt to their employer.

But it’s not just UPMC. Of the 1,773 non-profit hospitals that the Lown Institute evaluated, 77% spent less on charity care and community investment than they received in taxes.

The total fair share deficit for all these hospitals totaled $14.2 billion in 2020.

That’s enough money to keep over 600 rural hospitals open, or to cancel the medical debt of 18 million patients.

What Happens Now?

In just the last ten years, UPMC has grown from 12 hospitals to over 40.

Understaffing is pervasive at UPMC — and it’s only become worse as the hospital has gained more and more market power.

In May 2023, a coalition of unions filed an antitrust complaint with the Justice Department. The complaint accused UPMC of using its market power to harm workers.

U.S. Representative Summer Less has called for the DOJ to use its authority and investigate UPMC. “We have an industry that’s able to grow and grow and grow while leaving the very communities that it should be serving behind because of its charitable status”

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We Uncovered a Corporate Price-Gouging Conspiracy

We dug into Big Chicken's conspiracy to raise prices

July 14 2023

Huge corporations are colluding to raise chicken prices — up 61% over the last 15 years. But Washington state is leading a charge to fight back against Big Chicken’s monopoly. And they’re winning.

If you’ve walked into a grocery store to buy chicken over recent years, you’ve probably been faced with sticker shock.

And it’s not just you.

The numbers don’t add up

In May, 2008, the average price of a pound of chicken was $1.19.

In May, 2023, that same chicken cost $1.92. That’s a whopping 61% price increase, compared to the rate of inflation, which was about 41% over the same period.

And there’s a big secret that Big Chicken corporations don’t want you to know: they’re in on it.

Data, lawsuits, company documents and private correspondences reveal that major poultry producers in the U.S. conspired to artificially raise prices for years.

Over the past 50 years, the chicken industry has seen massive consolidation.
The concentration of the top four poultry firms in the U.S. grew from 17% in 1972 to a staggering 60% today.

The four biggest players are Tyson, Perdue, Sanderson Farms and Pilgrim’s Pride.

And as these companies have grown larger, their market reach has extended beyond just chicken.

The fight against Big Chicken

Washington is the first state to file an anti-monopoly lawsuit against major chicken producers and win.

While the settlement in Washington is a big win, the fight against corporate greed and collusion in the chicken industry still has a long road ahead.

Congress needs to stiffen our antitrust law and increase the penalties for violating our laws. We need to give the DOJ and FTC Federal Trade Commission the power to look back on past acquisitions and mergers. And if these companies are acting in bad faith, they need to be broken up and spun back out into the marketplace.

AOC Teams Up With Workers To Take On UPS

AOC recently spoke to UPS workers at a practice picket. These workers told us why 340,000 of them are ready to strike.

July 14 2023

UPS workers are prepping for one of the biggest strikes in American history. We hit a Teamsters practice picket with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and hundreds of workers, who told us why 340,000 of them are ready to strike.

The biggest demand? “We need to get paid.”

We’ve been covering UPS Teamsters ahead of their looming strike deadline later this summer. If UPS fails to reach a fair deal with workers, over 300,000 workers could walk out on the largest single-employer strike in U.S. history.

What workers want

Workers have been working in record temperatures. They demanding better working conditions like air conditioned trucks, no invasive driver-facing cameras, or forced overtime.

They’re also calling for the end of the two-tier pay system.

Under two-tier, some drivers get full-time pay and weekends off while a whole new generation of drivers works longer hours for less pay.

Companies like UPS use two-tier systems to divide workers and weaken unions. And two-tier wage systems can lead to lower wages across the whole industry.

UPS workers are also demanding equal pay for equal work.

UPS likes to boast about high wages, but only a small fraction of workers actually receive it. Here’s their dirty little secret:

60% of its workers are part-time – and many make barely above minimum wage.

Workers are demanding a pay raise for part-timers and for the company to turn these jobs into full-time.

For now, UPS workers across the country are engaged in practice picketing. If they don’t reach a deal, however, they’ll go on a very real strike.

Why Actors Are Striking For The First Time In 40 Years

Actors are shutting Hollywood down to save their livelihoods and the industry.

July 14 2023

Hollywood actors have joined writers on strike and shut down the TV and film industry.

Streaming has broken the industry. Successful actors are working second jobs. Some received $0 in residuals from Netflix shows with millions of viewers. And many have no health insurance. That’s why SAG-AFTRA actors have joined writers on strike for the first time since 1960.

They’re shutting Hollywood down.

Actors are striking for increased minimums for the lowest paid members, protection from replacement/duplication by AI, and streaming residuals that match television residuals.

Hollywood CEOs like Disney’s Bob Iger have called writers’ and actors’ demands “unrealistic”, despite the fact that executives rake in millions of dollars every year while many performers have to take on second jobs to pay their rent.

The strike will bring Hollywood to a screeching halt, shutting down whatever film and TV projects weren’t already stopped by the writers’ strike.

WGA and SAG-AFTRA members have huge leverage together. They’re using their power to save their livelihoods and the industry.

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Why Investors Are Turning Against Dollar General

Shareholders are forcing the dollar store giant to improve dangerous working conditions

Andrew Rivera

July 11 2023

Dollar General has been placed in a program for the worst worker safety violators in the nation — and even its shareholders are outraged.

A group of investors, led by Domini Impact Investments, are pressuring the retail giant to clean up its act.

In a major win for workers, Dollar General shareholders approved an independent audit of the company’s egregious safety issues.

Dollar General has racked up millions in fines as an OSHA ‘serial violator’ while paying workers poverty wages.

“The company has expanded so fast and so recklessly,” said David Williams, an employee and member of advocacy group Step Up Louisiana who presented the proposal to shareholders, “that on any given day, I might have to deal with a rat infestation, a door they won’t lock or someone pointing a gun at me with no security to protect me.”

Reps Attacking FTC Chair Lina Khan Are Funded By Big Tech

Google, Facebook, and Microsoft fund many of the conservative politicians and advocacy groups that have been going after Khan.

July 10 2023

By Donald Shaw and David Moore, Sludge

During her two years as chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan has racked up many critics among mega corporations. She’s been busy advancing a rule banning non-compete clauses, a rule that would make it easier for people to cancel subscriptions, and launching lawsuits against Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook that go after what she sees as the anti-competitive practices of these businesses.

The heads of Big Tech companies and their allies in the media are not happy about it. According to the anti-monopoly group American Economic Liberties Project, the Wall Street Journal has published at least 69 op-eds, editorials, or letters criticizing Khan.

On July 13, House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are holding a hearing with Khan where they are expected to attack her over the FTC’s ongoing investigation into billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and the “Twitter Files” journalists who he granted access to internal company documents, among other things.

Big Tech companies like Alphabet and Meta fund many of the conservative advocacy groups that have been going after Khan, including the American Action Forum, Cato Institute, and the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. The companies have also been funding some of Khan’s biggest critics on the Judiciary Committee. We examined the campaign contributions from Big Tech companies, and found that Republicans on the panel have received at least $400,000 from the PACs and employees of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, and that at least 11 of them have received donations directly from the companies’ lobbyists or executives.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has been targeting Khan for months. In April, Jordan subpoenaed the FTC for documents related to the agency’s actions in response to Musk’s Twitter takeover. In March, the Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which Jordan also chairs, published a report that accuses the FTC of having political motivations behind its Twitter investigation.

Over the course of his career, Jordan has received at least $76,000 from employees and PACs of the five Big Tech companies, including $38,000 that came from the PAC of Google. One of his donations in 2018 came from Adam Kovacevich, who was then the senior director of Alphabet’s federal lobbying team. According to a report from Mother Jones, Kovacevich spearheaded efforts at Google to bolster the company’s relationships with members of the GOP, including by getting the company to sponsor a reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference in order to “court the people who influence” conservative lawmakers. He was also behind the company’s efforts to fund think tanks that would produce reports favorable to Google’s interests, according to the report. Kovacevich has since founded a Big Tech lobbying group called Chamber of Progress that is funded by Google, Uber, Meta, Apple, and other companies, and that has been lobbying Congress against legislation that would limit the ways Big Tech companies could use their market power to gain advantages against competitors and consumers. Kovacevich, a former Democratic staffer, touts his tech industry group as center-left, but he sides with Jordan in opposing antitrust legislation that would reduce the power of Big Tech.

The Judiciary Committee’s second highest-ranking member, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, has joined Jordan in assailing Khan’s tenure at the FTC. Issa recently shared on Twitter a Wall Street Journal op-ed criticizing Khan that was written by a vice president of the conservative lobbying group FreedomWorks. Last month, Issa appeared on Fox Business and described an FTC order blocking a vertical merger of biotech companies Illumina and Grail as potentially “the worst regulatory move ever.” Of all Republicans on the committee, Issa has received the most donations from Big Tech employees and company PACs, with more than $134,000, including $71,000 from Microsoft’s PAC—making the company one of his top PAC contributors—and nearly $34,000 from Google employees. In addition, the tech industry trade group Consumer Technology Association, which in recent years has represented all five Big Tech firms, has been one of Issa’s top career PAC donors, according to OpenSecrets, giving his campaigns $75,000. Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook continue to be “core members” of the trade group.

While Issa has called to investigate what he describes as Big Tech censorship of conservatives, which he claims is the “singular Big Tech crisis of our times,” he rejected the tech platform-focused antitrust legislation that was passed out of the previous Congress’ Judiciary Committee to rein in the market power of giants like Facebook and Google. In June 2021, Issa slammed the tech antitrust push, calling the bills an “unprecedented expansion of big government,” and joined fellow California Republican Tom McClintock—and some Judiciary Committee Democrats from the state—in arguing that the legislation unfairly targeted Apple, Google, and Facebook, among other things. Later in 2021, Issa received a $2,500 contribution from Meta lobbyist Greg Maurer. Maurer, a vice president of public policy for Meta, is a former aide to Republican Speaker John Boehner who joined the company in 2012 as Facebook was stepping up its conservative network in Washington. This year, with Republicans again in control of the committee, Issa has accepted donations from Apple lobbyist Jeff Dobrozsi and Microsoft Competition Policy Counsel Stewart Jeffries. In years past, Issa received $3,000 in donations from former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates.

Committee member Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has been a partner to congressional Democrats on legislation designed to rein in anti-competitive behaviors of the tech giants, but he is still taking money from the industry’s PACs and lobbyists. Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft’s PACs have each made donations to Gaetz’s campaigns, as have Apple lobbyist Dobrozsi and Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, who sold his company to Meta

In December 2022, Gaetz was one of 11 House Republicans who co-signed a letter to Khan from Judiciary Committee member Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) expressing concern that she was shifting the FTC away from relying solely on a consumer welfare standard when reviewing corporate mergers. The consumer welfare standard, which can be as simple as a prediction of whether the costs of goods and services would go up or down under a merger, is also held up as the foundation of antitrust policy by groups like the Republican-aligned think tank American Action Forum; under the Biden administration, agency heads like the FTC’s Khan have worked to modernize merger guidelines and address anti-competitive effects.

During the coronavirus pandemic in 2021, the five Big Tech companies brought in around $320 billion in profits, shattering records they had set the year before. To block tech antitrust bills that had bipartisan support like the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which would prevent platforms from self-preferencing their own products, the tech giants spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying while in an all-out battle to block the measures, according to OpenSecrets. The lobbying blitz by Amazon, Apple, and others coincided with the bills not being brought up for a vote in the Senate before the end of the last Congress.

A couple lobbyists with Big Tech companies have donated to multiple Republican Judiciary Committee members. Meta’s Maurer has donated $500 to Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), $500 to Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), $250 to Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.), in addition to the $2,500 he contributed to Issa. Apple’s Dobrozsi has donated $500 to Jordan and $1,000 to Biggs, in addition to his donations to Issa and Gaetz described above.

Google has recently bestowed some favors on freshman Florida Republican Rep. Laurel Lee, who joined the House Judiciary Committee after having been appointed Florida Secretary of State in 2019 by Gov. Ron DeSantis. After Lee won the midterm election for Florida’s Fifteenth Congressional District, Google’s PAC donated $5,000 to her campaign in December to help retire its debt, and it gave another $1,000 in May. Lee is not alone among House Republicans on the committee in seeing PAC donations from the biggest tech companies: Rep. Ben Cline, who pledged to “fight against the abuses of Big Tech” after being appointed to a Republican task force in 2021, received $2,500 from Microsoft’s PAC in April.