For the comedian born Jonathan Leibowitz, see Jon Stewart

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Jon Leibowitz
Born	June 17, 1958 (1958-06-17) (age 51)[1]
Residence	Bethesda, Maryland
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	University of Wisconsin, B.A. American History 1980 New York University School of Law J.D. 1984
Occupation	lawyer
Home town	Englewood, New Jersey
Title	Chairman, U.S. Federal Trade Commission
Term	from March 2, 2009
Predecessor	William E. Kovacic
Successor	incumbent
Political party	Democrat
Spouse(s)	Ruth Marcus, Washington Post reporter
Children	Emma and Julia
Notes [2]

Jon Leibowitz (born June 17, 1958) is the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, an independent agency of the United States Government.^[3] He was sworn in as a commissioner on September 3, 2004, and became chairman on March 2, 2009.

In joining the Commission, Leibowitz resumed a long career of public service. He was the Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director for the U.S. Senate Antitrust Subcommittee (1997–2000), where he focused on competition policy and telecommunications matters and was known for developing bipartisan consensus. He served as Chief Counsel and Staff Director for the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Technology from 1995 to 1996 and the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice (1991–1994). In addition, he served as Chief Counsel to Senator Herb Kohl (1989–2000) and worked for Senator Paul Simon (1986–1987). Leibowitz was the Motion Picture Association of America's Vice President for Congressional Affairs (2000–2004), and an attorney in private practice in Washington, D.C. (1984–1986).^[4]

Contents 1 Life and career 1.1 Healthcare 1.2 Internet, Telecom and Technology 1.3 Advertising and Marketing to Children 1.4 Energy 1.5 Competition Enforcement Beyond the Sherman Act 2 Further reading 3 References

[edit] Life and career

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Wisconsin with a B.A. in American History (1980), Leibowitz graduated from the New York University School of Law in 1984. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, and has co-authored amicus curiæ briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court on issues ranging from gun control to under-counting in the census.^[4]

During his tenure at the FTC, Leibowitz has dedicated himself to a variety of competition and consumer protection issues.

[edit] Healthcare

Leibowitz has been a critic of “pay-for-delay” settlements in the pharmaceutical industry. According to FTC testimony, pay-for-delay settlements (also known as “reverse payments”) are anticompetitive agreements between brand name and generic pharmaceutical companies in which the brand company essentially pays its competitor to delay entry of a generic drug into the market.^[5] As Leibowitz explained, the practice results not only in windfalls for both companies—sometimes of more than a billion dollars—but also in higher drug prices for consumers.^[6] Leibowitz has testified before Congress on behalf of the Commission supporting legislation to ban these settlements, has published articles on this issue and advocates bringing cases against firms that engage in these practices.^[7]

[edit] Internet, Telecom and Technology

Leibowitz has been particularly involved in various Internet issues, from fighting spam and spyware to creating effective guidelines for online behavioral targeting (the practice of collecting Internet users’ unique browsing history to target advertising), to ensuring that website privacy policies are clear and accessible to consumers. He has urged the Commission to “name names” of advertisers who paid to advertise through so-called nuisance adware, software that displays or downloads advertisements on consumers’ computers without their consent.^[8] Leibowitz has also advocated for balanced “Net Neutrality” rules and for the right of municipalities to offer broadband to consumers free from restrictive state laws.^[9]

[edit] Advertising and Marketing to Children

Leibowitz has called for strong industry self-regulatory initiatives to help combat childhood obesity and ensure that only healthier foods and beverages are marketed to America’s children.^[10] He has also advocated continued review of entertainment industry marketing practices to prevent children from being exposed to inappropriate content. The Commission has completed five reports on this topic since 2000.^[11]

[edit] Energy

Leibowitz was the one commissioner to dissent on a 2007 FTC Report on Spring/Summer 2006 Nationwide Gasoline Price Increases, which found that the increase could be explained by market forces.^[12] Leibowitz suggested that the plausible explanation for the increase in gasoline prices that the Commission found was not necessarily the only explanation. “The question you ask determines the answer you get,” he wrote, “whatever theoretical justifications exist don’t exclude the real world threat that there was profiteering at the expense of consumers."^[13] Similarly, in an earlier report investigating accusations of price gouging by oil companies after Hurricane Katrina, Leibowitz wrote separately to note that a handful of refiners studied displayed “troubling” conduct.^[14]

[edit] Competition Enforcement Beyond the Sherman Act

Leibowitz has advocated for a re-invigorated enforcement of the FTC Act as a way to stop anticompetitive behavior that can no longer be reached under prevailing judicial interpretation of the antitrust laws. Leibowitz argued that in founding the FTC, “Congress intended to create an agency with authority that extended beyond the limits of the Sherman Antitrust Act.”^[15] Leibowitz has supported the use of Section 5 of the FTC Act (“unfair methods of competition”) beyond the Sherman Act in standard setting cases^[16] and in a case involving a failed agreement to fix prices.^[17] With Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch (a Republican) and Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour (an Independent), Leibowitz recently criticized a Department of Justice Report on monopolization, saying that DoJ’s approach placed “a thumb on the scales in favor of firms with monopoly or near-monopoly power and against other equally significant stakeholders."^[18]

[edit] Further reading

[edit] References