Roger Alford, a senior antitrust enforcer at the US Department of Justice, warned that competition authorities ought to be on the lookout for anticompetitive behavior, along with the risk of dynamic pricing on goods and commodities, as companies respond to high tariffs.
Roger Alford, a senior antitrust enforcer at the US Department of Justice, warned that competition authorities ought to be on the lookout for anticompetitive behavior, along with the risk of dynamic pricing on goods and commodities, as companies respond to high tariffs.The DOJ official was asked about interaction between international trade and the mission of antitrust.
Speaking at a conference,* Alford who is principal deputy assistant attorney general at the DOJ's Antitrust Division, replied that when the DOJ recently opened an antitrust investigation into high egg prices, the cost of the protein plummeted from $8 to $3 in a matter of days.
"And I was like, wow, that tells you something. So the there is a risk of anticompetitive behavior responding to the high tariffs, and that is dynamic pricing behavior of the remaining competitors," he said.
"If there's high tariff walls for foreign competition and then you go from only three competitors to two competitors, then you have dynamic pricing risk associated with that. So, we really need to be careful to watch for that when you do your market share calculations, when you do your analysis of anticompetitive conduct. We have to look to see if the if the tariffs will, in any way, shape or form, impact," Alford said.
In the first Trump administration, there was a change to pricing behavior with washers and dryers when South Korean company LG was subject to higher tariffs. LG quickly ramped up its production in the US, the DOJ official said.
*Antitrust Under Trump: Ferguson, Slater, Caffarra & Mundt Weigh In. FGS Global + Capitol Forum. April 2, 2025.
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