Law Commons^™

"Why Can't A Woman Be More Like A Man?" American And Australian Approaches To Exclusionary Conduct, George Hay, Rhonda L. Smith

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Much of antitrust law (in the U.S.) or trade practices law (in Australia) is about “exclusionary conduct,” things that large firms do to acquire an even larger share of the market or to preserve their large market share from being eroded by smaller rivals or new entrants. In the U.S., the main vehicle for policing inappropriate exclusionary conduct by large firms against smaller competitors is Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits monopolization or attempted monopolization. In Australia, the main vehicle is Section 46 which, generally speaking, prohibits the misuse of market power. The main purpose of this paper …

The Quiet Revolution In U.S. Antitrust Law, George Hay

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In this paper, I report on a series of recent decisions in antitrust cases by the U.S. Supreme Court. While each decision, read separately, may be only of moderate interest (even to a U.S. audience), the slate of decisions, looked at in its entirety, conveys a significant message, and one that may have meaning for scholars and practitioners in Australia and other jurisdictions outside the U.S. I would suggest that a quiet revolution is occurring in which the arguments economists have been making for nearly fifty years have suddenly been embraced by both the left and the right on the …

Software Development As An Antitrust Remedy: Lessons From The Enforcement Of The Microsoft Communications Protocol Licensing Requirement, William H. Page, Seldon J. Childers

UF Law Faculty Publications

An important provision in each of the final judgments in the government's Microsoft antitrust case requires Microsoft to "make available" to software developers the communications protocols that Windows client operating systems use to interoperate "natively" (that is, without adding software) with Microsoft server operating systems in corporate networks or over the Internet. The short-term goal of the provision is to allow developers, as licensees of the protocols, to write applications for non-Microsoft server operating systems that interoperate with Windows client computers in the same ways that applications written for Microsoft's server operating systems interoperate with Windows clients. The long-term goal …

The Legal Periphery Of Dominant Firm Conduct, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay explores two different but related problems and how U.S. antitrust law and EU competition law approach them. The first is the offense of attempt to monopolize, which concerns the acts that a firm that is not yet dominant might undertake in order to become dominant. The second is the offense of monopoly or dominant firm leveraging, which occurs when a firm uses its dominant position in one market to cause some kind of harm in a different market where it also does business.

The language of EU and U.S. provisions concerning dominant firms provokes one to think that …

Behavioral Economists At The Gate: Antitrust In The 21st Century, Maurice Stucke

Scholarly Works

Although tossed against the rocks elsewhere, the Law and Economics' rational choice theories, within the quiet waters of antitrust, stand largely unchallenged. Antitrust's economic theories, premised on 'rational' profit maximizing behavior, enjoy the deep slumber of a decided opinion. Although Post-Chicago School antitrust theories have developed, the Chicago School's rational choice theories still dominate. This article explores some possible paradoxes and anomalies with respect to antitrust's merger theories. It appears anecdotally that some corporate behavior is (or is not) occurring which is not readily explainable under the Chicago School's theories. It is an empirical question as to the degree the …

Are Issuers Of And Dealers In Securities Immune From Lawsuits Arising Under Federal And State Antitrust Laws?, Hannibal Travis

Faculty Publications

Conduct potentially subject to regulatory scrutiny by federal agencies such as the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is not necessarily immune from antitrust liability. The Supreme Court previously held that an anticompetitive conspiracy in the mutual fund industry was immune from antitrust liability because the SEC had the primary statutory authority to prohibit or permit such conspiracies. This case raises the question of whether another alleged conspiracy—to restrict the availability of certain initial public offerings of securities (IPOs)—is similarly immune.

Using The "Consumer Choice" Approach To Antitrust Law, Neil W. Averitt, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

The current paradigms of antitrust law - price and efficiency - do not work well enough. They were an immense improvement over their predecessors, and they have served the field competently for a generation, producing reasonably accurate results in most circumstances. Accumulated experience has also revealed their shortcomings, however. They are hard to fully understand and are not particularly transparent in their application. Moreover, in a disturbingly large number of circumstances they are unable to handle the important issue of non-price competition.

In this article we suggest replacing the older paradigms with the somewhat broader approach of "consumer choice." The …

Beyond Schumpeter Vs. Arrow: How Antitrust Fosters Innovation, Jonathan Baker

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The relationship between competition and innovation is the subject of a familiar controversy in economics, between the Schumpeterian view that monopolies favor innovation and the opposite view, often associated with Kenneth Arrow, that competition favors innovation. Taking their cue from this debate, some commentators reserve judgment as to whether antitrust enforcement is good for innovation. Such misgivings are unnecessary. The modern economic learning about the connection between competition and innovation helps clarify the types of firm conduct and industry settings where antitrust interventions are most likely to foster innovation. Measured against this standard, contemporary competition policy holds up well. Today's …

Market Definition: An Analytical Overview, Jonathan Baker

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This essay surveys important issues in antitrust market definition. It identifies settings in which market definition is useful, and evaluates methods of defining markets. It considers whether markets should be defined with respect to demand substitution only or whether supply substitution also should count. It addresses practical issues in defining markets, including the probative value of various types of evidence, how much buyer substitution is too much, application of the market definition algorithm of the Horizontal Merger Guidelines, the Cellophane fallacy, and the advantages and disadvantages of defining submarkets. It also evaluates several controversial approaches to market definition, including price …

Thirty Years Of Solicitude: Antitrust Law And Physician Cartels, Thomas L. Greaney

All Faculty Scholarship

Over the last thirty years the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have challenged dozens of physician cartels, networks, and other arrangements that they alleged constituted price fixing or other restraints of trade under the antitrust laws. In addition, the antitrust agencies have issued numerous advisory opinions, published detailed statements of enforcement policy, and made dozens of public statements on the issue of physician collaboration. The puzzle explored in this essay is why the government's deployment of unparalleled enforcement resources has not curtailed physician attempts to engage in collective bargaining and other attempts to restrain price competition. It …

Antitrust Around The World: An Empirical Analysis Of The Scope Of Competition Laws And Their Effects, Keith N. Hylton, Fei Deng

Faculty Scholarship

Since the early studies of Arnold Harberger,' George Stigler,² and Richard Posner,³ there has been a growing movement calling for the use of empirical evidence to judge the effectiveness of antitrust law in securing its goals.⁴ That there have been relatively few such studies is attributable to the lack of useful statistical information on the law, enforcement policies, and penalties.

In this article, we present an effort to use information on competition laws around the world to assess their scope and effectiveness. The foundation of this study is a dataset that codes key features of the competition …

A Comparison Between U.S. And E.U. Antitrust Treatment Of Tying Claims Against Microsoft: When Should The Bundling Of Computer Software Be Permitted?, James F. Ponsoldt, Christopher D. David

Scholarly Works

This article will analyze the recent U.S. and E.U. judicial approaches to tying charges which stem from software bundling. Part II reviews U.S. tying jurisprudence both generally and as applied to software bundling. Part III outlines the D.C. Circuit's approach to Microsoft's Windows/Internet Explorer bundle. Part IV briefly covers tying jurisprudence in the European Union. Part V describes the European Commission's (“E.C.”) analysis of Microsoft's Window/Windows Media Player bundle. By comparing the two approaches, Part VI shows that neither approach is ideal: although the U.S. approach offers too little guidance to software manufacturers seeking to avoid liability and unduly discounts …

Patent Ships Sail An Antitrust Sea, Joseph S. Miller

Scholarly Works

This brief essay arises from my participation in an April 2006 conference at Seattle University Law School, entitled At the Intersection of Antitrust and Intellectual Property Law: Looking Both Ways to Avoid a Collision. This intersection metaphor is a common one for describing antitrust law's relationship with intellectual property law, among both courts and commentators. This essay explores a different metaphor: patent ships sail an antitrust sea, protecting those aboard from competition's harshest dangers - but only for a time. The nautical metaphor evokes three ideas that the crossroads metaphor does not. First, vigorous competition is the pervasive, baseline reality; …

Nervine' And Knavery: The Life And Times Of Dr. Miles Medical Company, Rudolph J.R. Peritz

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Mandating Access To Telecom And The Internet: The Hidden Side Of Trinko, Daniel F. Spulber, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

Antitrust has long played a major role in telecommunications policy, demonstrated most dramatically by the equal access mandate imposed during the breakup of AT&T. In this Article we explore the extent to which antitrust can continue to serve as a source of access mandates following the Supreme Court's 2004 Trinko decision. Although Trinko sharply criticized access remedies and antitrust courts' ability to enforce them, it is not yet clear whether future courts will interpret the opinion as barring all antitrust access claims. Even more importantly, the opinion contains language hinting at possible bases for differentiating among different types of access, …

Restraints On Innovation, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

Beginning with the work of Joseph Schumpeter in the 1940s and later elaborated by Robert W. Solow's work on the neoclassical growth model, economics has produced a strong consensus that the economic gains from innovation dwarf those to be had from capital accumulation and increased price competition. An important but sometimes overlooked corollary is that restraints on innovation can do far more harm to the economy than restraints on traditional output or pricing. Many practices that violate the antitrust laws are best understood as restraints on innovation rather than restraints on pricing.

While antitrust models for assessing losses that result …

Antitrust Process And Vertical Deference: Judicial Review Of State Regulatory Inaction, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Courts struggle with the tension between national competition laws, on the one hand, and state and local regulation, on the other--especially as traditional governmental functions are privatized and as economic regulation advances beyond its traditional role to address market monitoring. This Article defends a process-based account of the antitrust state-action exception against alternative interpretations, such as the substantive efficiency-preemption approach that Richard Squire recently advanced, and it elaborates on what such a process-based account would entail for courts addressing the role of state economic regulation as a defense in antitrust cases. It recasts the debate as focused around delegation issues …