Law Commons^™

Harmful, Harmless, And Beneficial Uncertainty In Law, Scott Baker, Alex Raskolnikov

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the impact of four types of law-related uncertainty on the utility of risk-neutral agents. We find that greater legal or factual uncertainty makes agents worse off if enforcement is targeted (meaning that greater deviations from what the law demands lead to a greater probability of enforcement), or if sanctions are graduated (meaning that greater deviations from what the law demands result in higher sanctions). In contrast, agents are indifferent to changes in detection uncertainty induced by variation in enforcement resources or to changes in sanction uncertainty arising from legally irrelevant factors. Finally, risk-neutral agents benefit from greater …

Market Power And Inequality: The Antitrust Counterrevolution And Its Discontents, Lina M. Khan, Sandeep Vaheesan

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, economic inequality has become a central topic of public debate in the United States and much of the developed world. The popularity of Thomas Piketty’s nearly 700-page tome, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is a testament to this newfound focus on economic disparity. As top intellectuals, politicians, and public figures have come to recognize inequality as a major problem that must be addressed, they have offered a range of potential solutions. Frequently mentioned proposals include reforming the tax system, strengthening organized labor, revising international trade and investment agreements, and reducing the size of the financial sector.

One …

Making Meaning: Towards A Narrative Theory Of Statutory Interpretation And Judicial Justification, Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

The act of judging is complex involving finding facts, interpreting law, and then deciding a particular dispute. But these are not discreet functions: they bleed into one another and are thus interdependent. This article aims to reveal-at least in part-how judges approach this process. To do so, I look at three sets of civil RICO cases that align and diverge from civil antitrust precedents. I then posit that the judges in these cases base their decisions on assumptions about RICO's purpose. These assumptions, though often tacit and therefore not subject to direct observation, are nonetheless sometimes revealed when a judge …

E. Bement & Sons V. National Harrow Company: The First Skirmish Between Patent Law And The Sherman Act, Amelia Rinehart

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In the 1890s, the Sherman Act presented a host of unknowns for patent owners and lax enforcement enabled the proliferation of trusts like the Harrow Trust embodied in the practices of National Harrow. Bement, a profligate license violator, ended up fighting the trust all the way to the Supreme Court, but the surprising outcome left an enduring impression on the interplay between antitrust and patent law. In this way, the case has been both important and forgotten over time. Given the outcome in Actavis, and the possibility for a change of personnel on the Court that may shift it further …

Market Definition, Steven C. Salop, Serge Moresi, John R. Woodbury

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We explain the “hypothetical monopolist test” that has become the standard methodology for identifying relevant antitrust markets in merger cases, and discuss two approaches to implementing the test. We then focus on the implementation of the test when firms offer multiple products or services, either inside or outside the candidate market, and discuss the “hypothetical cartel test” introduced in the 2010 U.S. Merger Guidelines.