The U.S. government plans to reverse its antitrust policy and put more pressure on companies eyeing bigger market share through their dominance, the New York Times reported on its website.

Christine Varney, head of the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division, will announce the policy reversal in a speech on Monday at the Center for American Progress, the paper said, citing people who she consulted about the policy shift.

The changed policy will be a reversal from that of the Bush administration, during which not a single case against a dominant firm was lodged for violating the antimonopoly law, the paper said.

Varney is expected to say it was a major mistake during the outset of the Great Depression to relax antitrust enforcement, that enabled many large companies to engage in pricing, wage and collusive practices that harmed consumers and took years to reverse, the paper added.

(Reporting by Anurag Kotoky in Bangalore; Editing by David Cowell)

The New York Times