[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 19, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
  ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT GOALS HAVE NOT KEPT PACE WITH THE MARKETPLACE

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                            HON. JACK BROOKS

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 19, 1994

  Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing, together with 
Congressman Fish, a bill that would solve what has been a major 
obstacle to vigorous antitrust enforcement in the international arena--
the inability of our Justice Department to receive and share 
information with foreign agencies. Great praise needs to be given today 
to Attorney General Janet Reno and her vigilant antitrust chief Anne 
Bingaman for making this legislation a department priority.
  American business has long had a profound respect for these laws--if 
not a profound love. Unfortunately, foreign competitors do not share 
this respect. In too many instances foreign companies have targeted our 
economy with anticompetitive conduct. As our economy is more fully 
integrated in the global economy, we become ever more vulnerable to 
these destructive tactics.
  Yet, our antitrust enforcement tools have not kept pace with the 
international marketplace. Worse, in the eighties there seemed at times 
to be a lack of resolve by our Government to take foreign competitive 
threats seriously--perhaps reaching its lowest point in 1986 when the 
Justice Department--at the beck and call of the State Department--
advocated, before the Supreme Court, that foreign predatory conduct 
here could be excused if a foreign government merely asserted that it 
had directed the conduct to take place.
  Fortunately, in the nineties, the Justice Department is again 
demonstrating a stronger resolve, for U.S. interests and they are 
asking Congress for additional tools to do the job right. As one of 
those tools, the bill I am introducing today would enable the 
Department of Justice to enter into reciprocal discovery arrangements 
with foreign antitrust enforcers who share our views of a free 
marketplace. This will make it much more difficult for foreign 
predators to find a safe haven here.
  More work needs to be done in the foreign antitrust area, and I plan 
to target this area in the remainder of this Congress and into the 
next. I intend to pursue a range of other initiatives, including a 
close look at the operation of the foreign compulsion doctrine. I am 
hopeful that the Congress will be able to move this bill quickly to 
give to U.S. business the full and fair opportunity it has earned to 
compete in the global marketplace. As this bill moves through the 
committee process, we will make any further refinements necessary to 
assure that a proper balance is struck between preserving important 
individual and proprietary rights and providing additional antitrust 
enforcement authorities.

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