The Liberty Daily 
(The Epoch Times)—California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Sept. 30 signed an antitrust law that allows the state to sue a single company for monopoly behavior.
Until now, that law has covered only agreements between two or more companies to fix prices, limit production, or otherwise restrain trade.
Only the attorney general or a district attorney can bring a case under the new provisions. Private parties cannot.
To win a case, prosecutors must prove a company has “substantial market power.” The law also states that a business may still lawfully gain and keep a dominant position “through the superiority of its products, services, or business acumen.”
Small businesses are exempt. The law defines them as independently owned California companies with 100 or fewer employees and average annual revenue of $10 million or less.
Assembly Bill 1776, known as the COMPETE Act, expands the Cartwright Act, California’s main antitrust law. The new law takes effect Jan. 1, 2027.
The Legislature sent the bill to Newsom in late August, and he signed it as part of a package of small-business bills. The package requires cities to allow pop-up shops in vacant storefronts for up to 120 days, speeds up some commercial building permits, and lets restaurants and bars keep selling cocktails to go.
“California didn’t become the fourth-largest economy in the world by chance. We got here because of the innovators, risk-takers, and entrepreneurs who started small and helped build this state from the ground up,” Newsom said in a statement.
“Today we’re leveling the playing field for small businesses by making it easier to open and expand businesses, cutting red tape, and protecting competition. We’re taking on predatory practices that drive up costs and shut entrepreneurs out.”
Democratic Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, who wrote the bill, said the law gives the state tools to step in when a company stops competing fairly and “raise prices unchecked.”
The California Chamber of Commerce led opposition to the bill and said in a statement that it still opposes the law.
“AB 1776 is simply incompatible with federal antitrust law, and we remain opposed to its enactment,” the group said.
The chamber acknowledged that lawmakers removed many of the bill’s “most damaging components” before final passage—stating those provisions would have made many more business practices illegal and opened the door to a flood of lawsuits, with legal costs eventually passed on to consumers.
The chamber added that California has enacted four new antitrust laws in the past two years. It urged lawmakers to turn to “the many other issues that stand in the way of making California affordable and prosperous.”
The state Department of Finance, part of Newsom’s administration, opposed an August version of the bill. In its analysis, the department said that letting the state sue single companies could bring “unknown but potentially significant costs” for the attorney general’s office to investigate and prosecute those antitrust cases.
The California Department of Finance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
