Comment by apawloski
8 hours ago
Exercising its power as a purchaser is "not buying it" or "choosing a competitor." Instead, this is arbitrarily and capriciously using an administrative mechanism in a novel way to punish a company.
8 hours ago
Exercising its power as a purchaser is "not buying it" or "choosing a competitor." Instead, this is arbitrarily and capriciously using an administrative mechanism in a novel way to punish a company.
The "administrative mechanism" here is just a way of exercising purchasing control. A private company could do the same thing.
> A private company could do the same thing.
Probably not, no private company has the ability to tell all its suppliers "thou shalt not do business with <some other company>". They lack the pull to compel them to do so. The closest would be things like what MS did back in the 90s, and got them in hot water with the anti-trust case against them.
That's not what happened here. It was "you can't use <some other company> for stuff you do for us."
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Private companies are not bound by the first amendment, the fifth amendment, the administrative procedure act, etc.