Who Pays the Referee

2026

The claim

A claim in circulation, which this story could not trace to a named speaker, says U.S. antitrust enforcement is “fully funded by monopolies and their donations.” This story checks it against the statutes, the agencies’ own budget papers and the lobbying records. Part of it is borne out: much of the money comes from fees that merging companies must pay by law. The rest needs care.

$572.6 millionPremerger filing fees the Antitrust Division expects in fiscal 2027, to be split evenly between it and the FTC (Division budget request, an estimate)

2 Jul 1890

1890

The Sherman Act became law on 2 July 1890 and made every trust or conspiracy in restraint of trade illegal. It gave the work of bringing cases to the district attorneys, under the Attorney General. The Supreme Court used it to break up Standard Oil in 1911; that story is told in The Trust. The Justice Department’s own table of antitrust appropriations begins in 1903 and lists $300,000 for 1914.

15 Oct 1914

1914

Two laws followed within three weeks. The FTC Act of 26 September created a commission to stop “unfair methods of competition” and ended the Bureau of Corporations, whose pending cases passed to the new commission. The Clayton Act of 15 October barred a company from buying another’s stock where the effect “may be to substantially lessen competition.”

30 Sep 1976

1976

The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act of 30 September 1976 added a new section 7A to the Clayton Act. Above set size thresholds, a company may not buy voting securities or assets until both sides have filed notice with the FTC and the Justice Department and a waiting period has run. The Act set no fee. The Antitrust Division’s own table shows its money coming wholly from the general fund: $22.2 million in 1976, $44.9 million in 1989.

21 Nov 1989

1989

A section of an appropriations act told the FTC to collect a $20,000 fee from “persons acquiring voting securities” who must file under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. The fees were to be “divided evenly” between the FTC and the Antitrust Division, with those above $40 million in 1990 sent to the Treasury. The Division’s table shows fees as 28 percent of its money in 1990, 54 percent in 1995 and 99.8 percent in 1999.

$20,000The first premerger filing fee, set by Congress on 21 November 1989

29 Dec 2022

2022

A House report said the fees had last been updated in 2001. H.R. 3843 was introduced by three Democrats (Neguse, Cicilline, Nadler) and three Republicans (Spartz, Buck, Roy). It cut the lowest fee from $45,000 to $30,000, set $2.25 million for deals of $5 billion or more, and tied every fee to inflation. The committee’s minority views objected that “the bill places no limits on how the antitrust enforcers must use new funds.” The House passed it on 29 September 2022; it became law on 29 December as Division GG of the omnibus spending act.

242 to 184House vote passing the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, 29 September 2022

Jun 2021 – Dec 2022

Who lobbied

A search of the Senate’s lobbying database finds more than 40 organizations naming the bill in reports for 2021 and 2022. They include Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, unions and advocacy groups. Most list it with the other House antitrust bills and say nothing for or against; the Business Roundtable says it was “monitoring.” The Farmers Union lists “support for increased merger filing fees,” and the Demand Progress report opens “In support of stronger antitrust laws and enforcement.” The five tech firms’ reports state no side.

2024

The FTC

Its Program and Financing schedules give what actually came in. Premerger fees were 31 percent of its budget authority in fiscal 2020, 41 percent in 2023 (with another $172 million of earlier years’ fees), 58 percent in 2024 and 66 percent in 2025; the general fund paid 65, 17, 39 and 32 percent. The 2027 request, a plan and not a result, would take 67 percent from premerger fees and 29 percent from the general fund. About half of what the FTC spends goes to consumer protection.

58%Share of the FTC’s fiscal 2024 budget authority paid by premerger fees: $245 million of $426 million, actual receipts

2024

The Division

Its table shows how much fee money each year’s appropriation bill counted on, not always what came in: collections ran $11.9 million over its appropriation in 2024 and $49.2 million over in 2025. Counted fees were 62 to 85 percent of its money from 2010 to 2023. Since fiscal 2024 the table shows no general-fund money, and the 2027 request puts that line at an estimated $0. That has happened before, in 2000 to 2003 and in 2009. If fees fell short, the general fund would pay.

estimated $0General-fund money in the Antitrust Division’s fiscal 2027 request, because the appropriation is cut as fees arrive

2023

A fee, not a donation

The fee is owed before review: “no notification shall be considered filed” until it is paid, and it buys no clearance. Of fiscal 2023’s deals, 417 were over $1 billion, and the tiers at about $920 million and up brought in about $188 million of $346 million, 54 percent; the new schedule began in late February, so its top tiers cover only part of the year. “Fully funded by fees” fits the Division’s recent budgets. For the FTC the general fund paid 17 to 39 percent in 2023 to 2025, but its fee income ($245 million in 2024) now exceeds its competition spending ($228 million), and the papers do not say which fee dollars go to which mission.

417 of 1,735Reviewable deals in fiscal 2023 that were valued over $1 billion, nearly a quarter (HSR annual report)

2023

When deals fall

Fees follow filings. Net fees for fiscal 2023 were $343.6 million, part of the year on the new schedule; on the old fees they would have been $235.9 million. The FTC’s schedules show a real shortfall: in fiscal 2020, with 1,637 deals, premerger fees were $102 million and the general fund paid $217 million. The Division’s table shows the same in 2004, when the fee estimate fell $21.1 million short of its funding and direct money made up the gap.

3,152 to 1,805Deals reported under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act in fiscal 2022 and 2023; fiscal 2021 had 3,520, the highest in the report’s ten-year table

2025

Lobbying and campaign money

OpenSecrets puts Alphabet’s federal lobbying, on all issues rather than antitrust alone, at $14.45 million in 2023 and $14.79 million in 2024. For January to September 2025 it lists Meta at $19.79 million, Amazon at $13.99 million and Alphabet at $12.26 million; the Chamber of Commerce leads at $53.69 million. Companies cannot give to candidates directly; for the 2024 cycle OpenSecrets counts $20.6 million from Alphabet’s PAC, employees and their families, 90 percent of it from individuals. No court or inquiry cited here found that any of this money decided a case.

$16.54 millionAlphabet’s federal lobbying in 2025 on all issues, with its units, by OpenSecrets from Senate records

30 Aug 2017

Washington, 2017

On 27 June the Open Markets team at New America praised the EU’s record €2.42 billion fine on Google and urged U.S. enforcers to build on it. On 30 August New America ended director Barry Lynn’s employment. Anne-Marie Slaughter, New America’s CEO, says the cause was his repeated refusal to adhere to its standards, and calls the Times’s implication that Google lobbied for it “absolutely false”; Google says it played no role. Zephyr Teachout, who chairs the group Lynn’s team formed, says Slaughter told him to go within 72 hours of the release, and reports the Times’s figure of over $21 million from Google and Eric Schmidt’s family foundation to New America. Slaughter says the two had worked for two months on a spin-out. This story has not read the Times article.

27 Jul 2020

Arlington, Virginia

The Global Antitrust Institute sits in George Mason University’s law school. In 2020 The New York Times reported that tech companies, Google and Amazon among them, pay for most of it, and that it does not disclose its funders. The programs it described were for foreign officials: one week-long conference was for 30 foreign competition officials, and the institute’s head said it had trained more than 850 foreign judges and regulators. The Times reported $200,000 from Google in 2017 and $300,000 in 2018; two invoices in a House record show $100,000 in December 2017 and $200,000 in August 2018, which may be only part of the payments. The Times added: “It’s difficult to determine the impact of the institute.”

27 Jul 2020

Their answers

Google said it requires grantees to disclose their funding; the Times noted that Google’s list names the university’s foundation, where the institute’s donations are directed, but not the institute. Amazon said its support “does not mean we always agree with their viewpoints or that we direct the work that they do.” Tommaso Valletti, a former chief competition economist at the European Commission, told the Times the institute does not give “a balanced perspective of economics and its application to antitrust.” Joshua Wright, its head, said its mission, curriculum and lectures were available online for the public to assess, and that agency officials from around the world choose to send staff.

3 Jan 2013

3 January 2013

The FTC announced a settlement of its competition investigations of Google, by votes of 4 to 1 and 5 to 0. On search bias it closed the case unanimously after staff reviewed “over nine million pages of documents,” finding that, in the main, Google’s changes were made to improve search. Three commissioners found strong concerns that Google copied rivals’ content, and two that it limited advertisers’ use of rival engines; Google committed to stop both. By 4 to 1 the FTC ordered Google to stop seeking to exclude rivals with essential patents. Commissioner Rosch concurred in closing but did not join the statement.

25 Mar 2015

March 2015

The Wall Street Journal reported on a 2012 FTC staff report on Google, part of which the FTC had released by mistake. Reuters wrote that it indicated key staff members favored suing Google. Three commissioners answered that staff attorneys had raised concerns about “several other Google practices,” on which the Commission obtained commitments, while on search all five Commissioners found no legal basis for action. ICLE, a think tank, wrote that staff did not recommend suit on search bias. Google’s reply and the staff report’s own text are not in the sources opened here.

2015

Two careers

Joshua Wright was an FTC commissioner from 2013 to 2015; the FTC says he was not at the Commission when it decided the search case. At his 2012 nomination, the Times says, he was criticized for paid work for Google and agreed to recuse himself from Google matters. After the FTC he joined Wilson Sonsini, which the Times says represented Google, and led the institute. Susan Creighton led the FTC’s Bureau of Competition from July 2003 and is a Wilson Sonsini partner; her firm biography gives no date for leaving the FTC, and the 2013 closing letter was addressed to her as counsel. Nothing cited here says either acted improperly.

7 May 2026

A different case

On 20 October 2020 the Justice Department and 11 states sued Google over search. The federal case was about default-search agreements with browser makers, phone makers and carriers. A closer cousin of the 2013 question came from state plaintiffs, who said Google limited rivals’ visibility on its results page; in 2023 the court ruled for Google on that. In 2024 it held that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, and entered final judgment on 5 December 2025. Google appealed on 16 January 2026 and the plaintiffs cross-appealed on 3 February; the sources here run to a court order of 7 May 2026.

1 Feb 2021

Public comment

Firms also write to the FTC in the open. BlackRock wrote on 15 January 2019 about the FTC’s hearing on common ownership. Vanguard wrote on 1 February 2021 about the FTC’s December 2020 proposal to update the Hart-Scott-Rodino rules, saying it “cannot support the proposal” because of cost to investors, and called common ownership “an unproven hypothesis.” Both hold shares for clients in Microsoft and other large firms, as Who Owns BlackRock and Vanguard shows. Nothing cited here shows any letter changed a decision.