"When large, dominant firms are unable to innovate on their own, it’s common for them to focus more on how to find those ideas from their smaller competitors. Today’s report begins to shed light on how the largest technology giants — Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple — engage in acquisitions to lock up assets and intellectual property that may someday threaten their dominance," US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Rohit Chopra said in a statement published on September 15 alongside a new report on unreported acquisitions by big tech companies. Based on the report, the FTC is considering making reforms that will make it harder for big tech companies to escape the scrutiny of antitrust authorities. What is the report about? Back in February 2020, the FTC launched a study to understand acquisitions activities of big technology companies, specifically focusing on the acquisitions that did not require reporting to antitrust authorities at the FTC and the Department of Justice because they did not meet the reporting requirements prescribed under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act. The study was expected to shed more light on "whether large tech companies are making potentially anticompetitive acquisitions of nascent or potential competitors that fall below HSR filing thresholds." The findings of this study reveal that Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple made 616 acquisitions valued at or above $1 million between 2010 and 2019. Most of these acquisitions escaped the radar of the antitrust authorities because they use avoidance devices, said Commissioner Chopra. "Avoidance devices are tricks…
