Law Commons^™

Modifying Merger Consent Decrees To Improve Merger Enforcement Policy, Steven C. Salop

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article analyzes my short proposal for reviewing and modifying merger consent decrees to permit additional relief if the provisions of the initial consent merger are found to fail to preserve or restore competition in a reasonable period of time after the merger was consummated. My proposal also would involve more frequent reviews of consummated mergers that have been cleared without challenge, particularly those that were close calls. While “Don't Look Back” might be the best anthem for artists, economic decision theory would not support that approach to merger policy.

Predicting the impact of proposed mergers and remedies on consumers …

Antitrust Balancing, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

Antitrust litigation often confronts situations where effects point in both directions. Judges sometimes describe the process of evaluating these factors as “balancing.” In its e-Books decision the Second Circuit believed that the need to balance is what justifies application of the rule of reason. In Microsoft the D.C. Circuit stated that “courts routinely apply a…balancing approach” under which “the plaintiff must demonstrate that the anticompetitive harm…outweighs the procompetitive benefit.” But then it decided the case without balancing anything.

The term “balancing” is a very poor label for what courts actually do in these cases. Balancing requires that two offsetting effects …

Hospital Mergers And Economic Efficiency, Roger D. Blair, Christine Piette Durrance, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Consolidation via merger both from hospital-to-hospital mergers and from hospital acquisitions of physician groups is changing the competitive landscape of the provision of health care delivery in the United States. This Article undertakes a legal and economic examination of a recent Ninth Circuit case examining the hospital acquisition of a physician group. This Article explores the Saint Alphonsus Medical Center-Nampa Inc. v. St. Luke’s Health System, Ltd. (St. Luke’s) decision—proposing a type of analysis that the district court and Ninth Circuit should have undertaken and that we hope future courts undertake when analyzing mergers in the …

A Profile Of Bio-Pharma Consolidation Activity, Jordan Paradise

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

Re-Imagining Antitrust: The Revisionist Work Of Richard S. Markovits, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

This review discusses Richard Markovits’ two volume book "Economics and the Interpretation" and "Application of U.S. and E.U. Antitrust Law" (2014), focusing mainly on Markovits’ approaches to antitrust tests of illegality, pricing offenses, market definition and the assessment of market power, and his important work anticipating unilateral effects theory in merger cases. Markovits argues forcefully that the Sherman and Clayton Acts were intended to employ different tests of illegality. As a result, even when they cover the same practices, such as mergers, exclusive dealing, or tying, they address them under different tests. He then shows how he would analyze various …