ABSTRACT
This chapter reveals more clearly the bifurcated motives that finally resulted in Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fiscal-crisis paralysis. The reform commission set up to find means of expediting lengthy and expensive antitrust cases directed itself instead to finding means of hobbling big business. The Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 was the "first major antitrust legislation bearing an industry-wide challenge in almost three decades". The main purpose of the act was to provide enforcement agencies, the FTC and the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, with a mechanism for use against anticompetitive corporate mergers. Originally, the idea was that the new National Commission for the Review of Antitrust Laws and Procedures would study and recommend means for simplifying, for cutting down the excessive time and exorbitant costs of antitrust cases. Senator Ford was de facto chairman of the conference committee's Senate members and "had consistently opposed a legislative veto, but favored direct action by Congress to restrict the commission's activities".
