On April 9, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order, titled “Reducing Anti-Competitive Regulatory Barriers” (the EO), directing federal agencies to identify and rescind or modify anticompetitive regulations. The EO follows the Justic Department’s Antitrust Division launching its new Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force, which King & Spalding reported on last week, and reflects the administration’s continued focus on this topic.
Scope of Review
The EO provides that federal agencies shall “complete a review of all regulations subject to their rulemaking authority” to identify those regulations that:
- create, or facilitate the creation of, de facto or de jure monopolies;
- create unnecessary barriers to entry for new market participants;
- limit competition between competing entities or have the effect of limiting competition between competing entities;
- create or facilitate licensure or accreditation requirements that unduly limit competition;
- unnecessarily burden the agency’s procurement processes, thereby limiting companies’ ability to compete for procurements; or
- otherwise impose anti-competitive restraints or distortions on the operation of the free market.
Timeline For Review
The EO provides the following timelines:
- Within ten days of the EO (by April 19, 2025), the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) shall issue a request for information (RFI) that seeks public input on the identification of anticompetitive regulations that fall within the categories identified in the EO, as well as comments explaining the proposed classifications.
- Forty days after the RFI (around May 29, 2025), the FTC Chair shall convey any relevant responses to the federal agencies with authority over the regulations identified by the public.
- Within seventy days after the EO (around July 18, 2025), the federal agency heads shall provide the FTC Chair and the Attorney General with a list of regulations identified as responsive to the EO, along with recommendations as to whether those regulations should be rescinded or modified to address anticompetitive effects. Any identified anticompetitive regulations that are not recommended for rescission or modification require justification. The federal agencies are to prioritize review of regulations that constitute “significant regulatory action” pursuant to the applicable executive order regarding regulatory planning and review.
- Within ninety days of receipt of the list of regulations from the agencies (around October 16, 2025), the FTC Chair shall, after consultation with the Department of Justice, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the relevant federal agencies, provide the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB Director) a consolidated list of regulations that warrant rescission or modification. The consolidated list is not limited to the regulations originally identified by the agencies. Thereafter, the OMB Director will, in consultation with FTC Chair and the same entities with whom the FTC Chair consulted, determine whether to implement the proposed rescissions or modifications.
Although the EO does not identify any industry as a particular target for the EO’s deregulatory efforts, the Antitrust Division’s announcement regarding the new Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force did specifically identify the healthcare industry, noting that “[l]aws and regulations” that “discourage doctors and hospitals from providing low-cost, high-quality healthcare and instead encourage overbilling and consolidation” are a particular target.
The EO can be found here.
