US regulators run to catch up with EU

Author, who is the director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, writes that for once, America is running at top speed to catch up with the European Union. In levying a record fine against Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, the EU competition authorities have let it be known that a dominant company’s efforts to crush rivals by threatening customers or rigging a price schedule will not be tolerated. President Barack Obama’s new team is in the early stages of saying “we agree”. After years in which the Bush administration allowed dominant companies to just about do as they pleased, Christine Varney, the president’s new antitrust cop, is running around Washington telling business groups that the enforcement hiatus is over.