WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) – US Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan will testify on July 13 before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee who have sharply criticized her leadership of the antitrust enforcement agency, the committee confirmed and the committee Friday.
This will be her first appearance before the committee since the Republicans took power.
Republicans have been especially critical of the FTC’s privacy investigation into Twitter since it was bought by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
In March, the FTC confirmed it was conducting an investigation into Twitter’s privacy practices. The agency was concerned about whether Twitter had the staff to abide by a May 2022 settlement with the FTC in which it agreed to improve its privacy practices.
In April, the commission subpoenaed Khan for documents related to the Twitter privacy investigation following Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the social media company in October.
Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, suggested in a June 8 letter that “there is an unwarranted gap of about a year in the actions of the FTC regarding Twitter,” adding that it was reasonable to conclude that neither the previous chairman nor Khan “seriously intended to take action against Twitter” until political pressure arose given Mr. Musk’s imminent takeover.”
Jordan also in February questioned the FTC’s plans to pass a new rule to ban employee non-compete clauses and its approach to the Illumina and Grail merger.
San Diego-based gene sequencing specialist Illumina is appealing an FTC order saying the company’s $7.1 billion acquisition of Grail will curb competition in the cancer testing market. Illumina has denied the allegations.
The FTC, which typically has five committees, including two from the minority party, currently has only three Democratic commissioners after Christine Wilson stepped down in late March.
Khan, an antitrust investigator focused on Big Tech’s massive market power, vowed to revitalize antitrust enforcement after she joined the FTC in June 2021 and was named chairman.
This week, the FTC sued Amazon.com (AMZN.O), accusing it of subscribing millions of consumers to its paid subscription Amazon Prime service without their consent and making it difficult for them to cancel.
Politico first released the plans for the hearing.
Reporting by David Shepardson; edited by Diane Craft and David Gregorio