Trustbusting's Top European Cop

The rebirth of antitrust has been one of the most dramatic business stories in years. Reviving memories of Teddy Roosevelt's epic battles with Standard Oil and American Tobacco, Clinton-era trustbusters Joel I. Klein and Robert Pitofsky challenged a long list of the country's most powerful companies, ranging from American Airlines (AMR ) to Microsoft (MSFT ) to Visa to America Online (AOL ).

But now Justice Dept. antitrust chief Klein is gone and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Pitofsky is on his way out. In their places, George W. Bush is nominating, respectively, Charles A. James and Timothy J. Muris--two conservatives who are expected to toss out many of their predecessors' pet legal theories and restore an era of antitrust minimalism. But Corporate America shouldn't relax just yet. Aggressive trustbusting is still alive and well--in, of all places, Europe, where price-fixing was an accepted business practice until a few years ago, secret cartels have been discovered in many industries, and key competition laws are brand new.