Top New York Democrat Urges Tech Probes Even If Shares Suffer

(Bloomberg) -- A top New York Democrat urged a full-fledged congressional investigation of the technology industry’s business practices, even if the probe causes shares of the biggest companies to drop.

Hakeem Jeffries, a member of House leadership and the Judiciary Committee, told Bloomberg News on Wednesday Congress may need to force social media companies such as Facebook Inc. to make a "change in direction."

"Can anyone really have confidence that Mark Zuckerberg has the best interests of the American consumer in mind?" Jeffries said. "He repeatedly engages in apology after apology and promises to do things differently only to find further revelations about how Facebook has again breached the trust of the everyday American.”

Jeffries made the comments two days after the House Judiciary Committee announced it’s opening an antitrust investigation into major technology companies, particularly on whether increased concentration in the industry is crowding out competition. News of that probe and potential investigations into tech companies by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department sent shares of the industry’s largest companies tumbling earlier this week.

Jeffries said the committee should conduct "a reasonable inquiry" that doesn’t have a predetermined outcome, particularly on the "practices of Facebook." The panel shouldn’t be inhibited by the companies’ share price, he said.

"It doesn’t seem to make sense to me that we should take into consideration stock prices of multi-billion dollar corporations when congress is engaging in its legitimate oversight functions,” he said. “We have a responsibility to the American consumer."

While he didn’t rule out the idea the committee would issue subpoenas to secure testimony from companies’ CEOs, he said he expects the committee would try to invite the companies’ leadership to come forward in a "collaborative" manner.

“It’s never the right thing to do to jump to a subpoena,” he said.

While Representative David Cicilline, the Rhode Island Democrat who chairs the Antitrust, Commercial & Administrative Law Subcommittee, has said lawmakers may explore reforming antitrust laws, Jeffries said Congress isn’t ready.

"Something like that would involve a much deeper level of conversation," Jeffries said. "I don’t think we’re at that point right now.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Naomi Nix in Washington at nnix1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton

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