Antitrust Enforcers Need ‘Bias’ Toward Action, US Official Says

Antitrust enforcers should be willing to challenge mergers that decrease competition, without trusting corporations to stick to promised remedies, a top Justice Department official said Thursday, two days after the department sued Alphabet Inc.’s Google to break up its online advertising business.

Doha Mekki, the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the department’s antitrust division, said agencies under previous administrations have “usurped the will of Congress” by declining to enforce the letter of antitrust laws that are in some cases more than century old.

She called for the government to operate with a “bias towards action,” even if it ...