The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday took its most aggressive actions since Lina Khan became chair to rein in the power of Big Tech, pursuing a lawsuit to block Microsoft’s acquisition of a game developer on the same day it opened arguments in another case against Meta’s purchase of a virtual reality start-up.

In both cases, the FTC argued that the acquisitions would squash future innovation in emerging gaming markets, a relatively novel interpretation of antitrust law that Khan (D) and her allies have championed as they seek to usher in an era of competition enforcement. The complaints follow long-running criticism that federal regulators have not been forward-looking enough in evaluating deals in Silicon Valley, allowing tech titans to dominate by gobbling up their much smaller rivals.

…

Meanwhile, advocates for antitrust enforcement cheered on the FTC’s strategy of pursuing cases against such mergers — even risky ones. Lee Hepner, the legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, said the FTC’s case against Microsoft was a signal of a “renewed approach” under the Biden administration to restore competition.

“What has happened over the past 50 years, really, is through a pattern of intentional government neglect, caused by intensive corporate lobbying, we’ve abandoned the purpose of the law,” he said. “So I think what we’re seeing now is not the FTC and DOJ trying to rewrite the law. It’s trying to reinvigorate the law and to restore the law to its intent.”