Slew of Private Antitrust Suits Awaits Big Tech Under House Plan

Companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. would face a rise in private consumer and employee litigation under a House Democratic proposal to dismantle big tech’s market dominance in part by banning mandatory arbitration agreements.

“If it’s doing something anticompetitive, probably the first people that would notice and have the motivation to sue would be these small companies” that interact with Amazon, such as vendors and sellers, said Erik Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in antitrust and competition policy.

Eliminating forced arbitration “will have a very significant impact on the ability of ...