Bills to add muscle to antitrust efforts up for vote in U.S. House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote late Wednesday on a bill that would update fees companies pay for merger reviews and strengthen state attorneys general in antitrust fights, according to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office.

The bill combines measures introduced by Representative Joe Neguse, a Democrat, and Representative Ken Buck, a Republican,

It would allow state attorneys general to choose which court they want to hear antitrust cases. Defendants would not be allowed to request a change of venue.

Texas, along with other states, brought an antitrust action against Alphabet Inc's Google in 2020 which the search and advertising giant succeeded in moving from Texas to a New York court, angering conservatives.

Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, joined with at least four other California Democrats to urge that the bill be defeated because of the venue measure. California is home to some of the biggest tech companies, including Google and Meta's Facebook.

The measure also lowers the fees paid for antitrust reviews of smaller deals. But bigger deals will be more expensive. Deals worth $5 billion or more will pay $2.25 million to regulators doing the antitrust review.

The reviews are conducted by the U.S. Justice Department's Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission.

The Senate has passed a bill giving state attorneys general the right to pick the venue for antitrust fights but has not passed a bill to update merger filing fees.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Jonathan Oatis)