I am not a bodybuilder nor, as my son goadingly reminds me, do I have a six-pack. Yet intuitively and by dint of some physiotherapy sessions, I know that regular weight-lifting serves my long-term health in ways that may not be readily apparent. So I put my dad-bod through the trial of early-morning lifting sessions. If I don't, I'll lose muscle that'll be harder to get back as I age.

And so it's with some alarm that we read this morning that the Federal Trade Commission has settled what was expected to be its one and only antitrust conduct case in 2026, on the first morning of trial.

Let's set aside whether it served the public interest for one of the federal government's two antitrust enforcement agencies to settle a case—in which two direct competitors allegedly agreed that one of them would stop competing in a particular market—based on the last-minute assurance that the exiting competitor would reenter the market.

The more immediate concern is that an esteemed body of trial attorneys charged with protecting competition in U.S.-related markets aren't getting reps. Will the muscles atrophy? Will companies that see antitrust compliance as a risk-adjusted variable (rather than a categorical imperative) take this as a signal that the risks of non-compliance are quite low indeed—if we get caught, we can just reverse course?

Let us not become weary in trying cases. For lawyers, it's part of building and maintaining muscle mass required to serve our clients. For the public and for free-market competition, FTC and DOJ trials are a bulwark against collusive, monopolistic conduct.