Antitrust Division

Antitrust Division Manual

The Division's organizational roots can be traced to the creation in March 1903 of an Assistant to the Attorney General to take charge of all lawsuits filed under the antitrust and interstate commerce laws and to assist the Attorney General and the Solicitor General in the conduct of the general executive work of the Department. The post was created under President Theodore Roosevelt and Attorney General Philander Knox. With the growth of the economy and corporate enterprise during the early part of the 20th century, it became evident that the Department of Justice needed its own corps of specialists in antitrust law to cope with the increasing complexities of antitrust enforcement. Consequently, in 1933, under the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Attorney General Homer S. Cummings, the Antitrust Division was established. At that time, the Division employed 16 lawyers and had a budget of $142,000. The mission of the Antitrust Division is the promotion and maintenance of competition in the American economy. Private anticompetitive conduct is subject to criminal and civil actions under the Sherman and Clayton Acts, statutes that prohibit conspiracies in restraint of trade, monopolization, and anticompetitive mergers. Through participation in Executive Branch activities and in regulatory and legislative processes, the Division seeks to ensure that Government action is procompetitive or not unnecessarily anticompetitive. Through its own litigation, amicus filings, and in a variety of other public forums, the Division also seeks to guide the advancement of antitrust jurisprudence. The Division seeks to provide clarity, transparency, and insight about the Division's processes and procedures and the Division Manual is an important tool for achieving that purpose. This edition of the Manual includes information about the reorganization of our Front Office operations. Since the last edition of the Manual, we have restructured the Office of Operations, which now includes the Director of Civil Enforcement and the Director of Criminal Enforcement, who report to the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil and Criminal Operations. We have also created a new senior level position, Director of Litigation, who is responsible for ensuring that the Division maintains the highest standards in all of its litigation. The Manual also describes the new Office of General Counsel, which, among other responsibilities, oversees the Division's compliance function. These changes are intended to enhance the Division's effectiveness in fulfilling its mission to enforce the antitrust laws and thereby preserve competition and protect American consumers.