Law Commons^™

Jurisdiction Beyond Our Borders: United States V. Alcoa And The Extraterritorial Reach Of American Antitrust, 1909–1945, Laura Phillips Sawyer

Scholarly Works

Chapter in the book Antimonopoly and American Democracy by Daniel A. Crane and William J. Novak, eds., Oxford University Press, 2023.

In 1945, Judge Learned Hand wrote one of the most influential opinions in modern antitrust law. In declaring that the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) had illegally monopolized the industry for virgin aluminum and had participated in an illegal international cartel, Hand both revived and extended American antitrust law. The ruling is famous for several reasons: it narrowly defined the relevant market in favor of the government; it expanded the category of impermissible dominant firm conduct; it interpreted congressional …

The Summary Judgment Revolution That Wasn't, Jonathan R. Nash, D. Daniel Sokol

Faculty Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court decided a trilogy of cases on summary judgment in 1986. Questions remain as to how much effect these cases have had on judicial decision-making in terms of wins and losses for plaintiffs. Shifts in wins, losses, and what cases get to decisions on the merits impact access to justice. We assemble novel datasets to examine this question empirically in three areas of law that are more likely to respond to shifts in the standard for summary judgment: antitrust, securities regulation, and civil rights. We find that the Supreme Court’s decisions had a statistically significant effect in …

Matsushita At Thirty: Has The Pendulum Swung Too Far In Favor Of Summary Judgment?, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The Supreme Court's ruling in Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp. marked the end of judicial hostility to Rule 56 motions and effectively legitimized the use of summary judgment in antitrust cases. The 5-4 decision dramatically altered the antitrust litigation landscape both procedurally and substantively. Procedurally, the decision underscored the trans-substantive nature of summary judgment, making clear that summary judgment is as appropriate in complex antitrust cases as in any other area of the law. Matsushita also made clear that the legal standards for summary judgment mirror the legal standards for directed verdict at trial. In …

Trending @ Rwulaw: Susan Schwab Heyman's Post: Defining The Boundaries Of Insider Trading, Susan Schwab Heyman

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Patent Dialogue, Jonas Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This Article examines the unique dialogic relationship that exists between the Supreme Court and Congress concerning patent law. In most areas of the law, Congress and the Supreme Court engage directly with each other to craft legal rules. When it comes to patent law, however, Congress and the Court often interact via an intermediary institution: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In patent law, dialogue often begins when Congress or the Supreme Court acts as a dialogic catalyst, signaling reform priorities to which the Federal Circuit often responds.

Appreciating the unique nature of patent dialogue has important …

The Ftaia And Claims By Foreign Plaintiffs Under State Law, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In Empagran, the Supreme Court construed the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act (FTAIA) to severely limit the extraterritorial reach of the Sherman Act. In the wake of Empagran and the D.C. Circuit’s subsequent ruling on remand in that case, foreign plaintiffs asserting claims under U.S. antitrust laws for injuries based on transactions consummated abroad have been largely shut out of federal courts. Foreign plaintiffs, however, have not abandoned their efforts to obtain relief in American courts for anticompetitive acts committed in the international arena. Rather, they have turned to claims under various state laws, including state antitrust laws, …

The Roberts Court And The Limits Of Antitrust, Thom Lambert

Faculty Publications

This article first describes the fundamental limits of antitrust and the decision-theoretic approach such limits inspire. It then analyzes the Roberts Court’s antitrust decisions, explaining how each coheres with the decision-theoretic model. Finally, it predicts how the Court will address three issues likely to come before it in the future: tying, loyalty rebates, and bundled discounts.

The Firm As Cartel Manager, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Christopher R. Leslie

All Faculty Scholarship

Antitrust law is the primary legal obstacle to price fixing, which is condemned by Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Firms that engage in price fixing may try to reduce their probability of antitrust liability in a number of ways. First, members of a price-fixing conspiracy go to great lengths to conceal their illegal activities from antitrust enforcers. Second, because Section 1 condemns only concerted action, firms may structure their relationship to appear to be the action of a single entity that is beyond the reach of Section One.

In its American Needle decision the Supreme Court held that the …

American Needle And The Boundaries Of The Firm In Antitrust Law, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

In American Needle the Supreme Court unanimously held that for the practice at issue the NFL should be treated as a “combination” of its teams rather than a single entity. However, the arrangement must be assessed under the rule of reason. The opinion, written by Justice Stevens, was almost certainly his last opinion for the Court in an antitrust case; Justice Stevens had been a dissenter in the Supreme Court’s Copperweld decision 25 years earlier, which held that a parent corporation and its wholly owned subsidiary constituted a single “firm” for antitrust purposes. The Sherman Act speaks to this issue …

American Needle: The Sherman Act, Conspiracy, And Exclusion, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay, part of a colloquium in the CPI Antitrust Journal, explores the meaning and significance of the Supreme Court’s decision in American Needle v. NFL. The Supreme Court held that for purposes of the dispute at hand the NFL should be treated as a collaboration of its member teams rather than a single entity. The factors that the Supreme Court considered most important were, first, that the NFL’s member teams are individually owned profit making entities who compete with each other in at least some economic markets, such as that for the sale of apparel bearing NFL symbols. …

Intra-Enterprise Activity, Joint Ventures And Sports Leagues: Identifying Unilateral Conduct Under The Antitrust Laws, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

In the American Needle case the Supreme Court will consider whether the NFL’s decision to give an exclusive trademark license to one firm should be counted as “unilateral” on the NFL’s part, or rather as the concerted joint venture activity of the NFL’s individual member teams. The intellectual property in question is not trademarks in the NFL itself, but rather the trademarks and other intellectual property developed separately by each individual team, and which the teams in turn have licensed exclusively to the NFL.

In general, when a joint venture is engaged in its own business the unilateral characterization is …

May A Foreign Plaintiff Sue A Foreign Defendant For Conduct Outside The U.S. That Caused Antitrust Injury Outside The U.S.?, Antonio F. Perez

Scholarly Articles

May the respondents, five foreign companies that purchased goods outside the United States from other foreign companies, pursue Sherman Act claims seeking recovery for overcharges paid in transactions occurring entirely outside U.S. commerce under the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act of 1982 (FTAIA), 15 U.S.C. § 6a? Do such foreign plaintiffs lack standing under Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 15(a)?

Ii Prodotto Di Marca E Ii Suo Mercato Derivato, Rudolph J.R. Peritz

Articles & Chapters

The essay describes the most meaningful recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and of lower courts on single brand aftermarkets for replacement parts and services, putting into historical context the market economics that inspires current antitrust jurisprudence. Particularly, it shows that the .post-classical approach has never entirely superceded neo-classical doctrines. Rather, several shifting tides of theory have swept, and still sweep, over the domain of antitrust doctrine influencing the debate unevenly.

New Communications Technologies: The Emerging Antitrust Agenda, Michael Botein

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Pfizer, Inc. V. India Foreign Sovereigns’ Standing To Sue For Treble Damages, Gary M. Shaw

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.