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2012

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Antitrust and Trade Regulation

University of Florida Levin College of Law

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Law

Does A Cartel Aim Expressly? Trusting Calder Personal Jurisdiction When Antitrust Goes Global?, Larry Dougherty Nov 2012

Does A Cartel Aim Expressly? Trusting Calder Personal Jurisdiction When Antitrust Goes Global?, Larry Dougherty

Florida Law Review

Suppose your law firm represents CrabApple, the large, Californiabased manufacturer of the BuyPod, a portable digital music player. CrabApple also sells songs from its online music store, BuyTunes, for use on the BuyPod. One morning, a class-action antitrust lawsuit lands on your desk. It accuses CrabApple of illegal tying—because the BuyPod is designed to play only music from BuyTunes, and BuyTunes songs only play on BuyPods. CrabApple customers claim the tying has forced them to make unwanted purchases—BuyPod ownersfelt compelled to buy their music from BuyTunes, and anyone who wanted to use BuyTunes had to get a BuyPod. These consumers …

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Much Ado About Nothing? The Antitrust Implications Of Private Equity Club Deals, Jessica Jackson Nov 2012

Much Ado About Nothing? The Antitrust Implications Of Private Equity Club Deals, Jessica Jackson

Florida Law Review

In May 1976, with merely $120,000 and a few metal chairs left behind from a prior tenant, Kolberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) opened its doors. Though few people outside Wall Street circles knew of this start-up company, by the 1980s its reputation as a takeover machine brought it notoriety. One can only imagine what went on behind closed doors, but whatever happened, it worked. By 1989, KKR had become the largest client of accounting giant Deloitte & Touche, with General Motors following as a close second. The “Age of Leverage” peaked in 1990 when KKR took over RJR Nabisco. …

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The Lessons From Libor For Detection And Deterrence Of Cartel Wrongdoing, Rosa M. Abrantes-Metz, D. Daniel Sokol Oct 2012

The Lessons From Libor For Detection And Deterrence Of Cartel Wrongdoing, Rosa M. Abrantes-Metz, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

In late June 2012, Barclays entered into a $453 million settlement with UK and U.S. regulators due to its manipulation of Libor between 2005 and 2009. Among the agencies that investigated Barclays is the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (as well as other antitrust authorities and regulatory agencies from around the world). Participation in a price fixing conduct, by its very nature, requires the involvement of more than one firm.

We are cautious to draw overly broad conclusions until more facts come out in the public domain. What we note at this time, based on public information, is that the …

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The Strategic Use Of Public And Private Litigation In Antitrust As Business Strategy, D. Daniel Sokol Mar 2012

The Strategic Use Of Public And Private Litigation In Antitrust As Business Strategy, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article claims that there may be a subset of cases in which private rights of action may work with public rights as an effective strategy for a firm to raise costs against rival dominant firms. A competitor firm may bring its own case (which is costly) and/or have government bring a case on its behalf (which is less costly). Alternatively, if the competitor firm has sufficient financial resources, it can pursue an approach that employs both strategies simultaneously. This situation of public and private misuse of antitrust may not happen often. As the Article will explore, it is not …

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Antitrust Energy, D. Daniel Sokol, Barak Orbach Mar 2012

Antitrust Energy, D. Daniel Sokol, Barak Orbach

UF Law Faculty Publications

Marking the centennial anniversary of Standard Oil Co. v. United States, we argue that much of the critique of antitrust enforcement and the skepticism about its social significance suffer from “Nirvana fallacy” — comparing existing and feasible policies to ideal normative policies, and concluding that the existing and feasible ones are inherently inefficient because of their imperfections. Antitrust law and policy have always been and will always be imperfect. However, they are alive and kicking. The antitrust discipline is vibrant, evolving, and global. This essay introduces a number of important innovations in scholarship related to Standard Oil and its modern …

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A Neo-Chicago Approach To Concerted Action, William H. Page Jan 2012

A Neo-Chicago Approach To Concerted Action, William H. Page

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this article, I offer an approach to concerted action that builds on traditional Chicago School analyses of the issue, but adds a focus on the role of communication. Chicago scholars uniformly identify cartels as the primary target of antitrust enforcement. They have also established much of the framework within which courts and economists analyze concerted action. George Stigler’s seminal theory of oligopoly, which sought to identify the determinants of effective collusion, has spawned an enormous literature in game theory that models the pricing behavior of oligopolists. Richard Posner’s early analysis of tacit collusion - rivals’ coordination of noncompetitive pricing …

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Beyond Labor Rights: Which Core Human Rights Must Regional Trade Agreements Protect?, Stephen J. Powell, Trisha Low Jan 2012

Beyond Labor Rights: Which Core Human Rights Must Regional Trade Agreements Protect?, Stephen J. Powell, Trisha Low

UF Law Faculty Publications

As World Trade Organization ("WTO") Members relentlessly pursue new regional trade agreements to achieve even faster economic growth than the extraordinary numbers posted by global trade rules, the smaller number of parties and their greater cultural affinity have led negotiators to address the intersection of trade and human rights to an extent unparalleled in the culturally disparate and near-unmanageable, 150-plus member WTO itself. These new provisions have used trade's huge power to improve worker rights, secure environmental protections, and make initial inroads toward defending indigenous populations from trade's adverse effects. Employing the perspectives both of trade negotiators and students of …

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Antitrust, Innovation, And Product Design In Platform Markets: Microsoft And Intel, William H. Page, Seldon J. Childers Jan 2012

Antitrust, Innovation, And Product Design In Platform Markets: Microsoft And Intel, William H. Page, Seldon J. Childers

UF Law Faculty Publications

The Antitrust Division’s Microsoft case and the Federal Trade Commission’s Intel case both rested on claims that antitrust intervention was necessary to preserve innovation in technological platforms at the heart of the personal computer. Yet, because those very platforms support markets that are among the most innovative in the American economy, injudicious intervention might well have jeopardized the very innovation that antitrust should promote. In this article, we review the role of platforms in technological innovation and consider how antitrust standards should apply to them. We then examine how Microsoft resolved antitrust issues affecting platform design at various stages of …

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Standard Oil And U.S. Steel: Predation And Collusion In The Law Of Monopolization And Mergers, William H. Page Jan 2012

Standard Oil And U.S. Steel: Predation And Collusion In The Law Of Monopolization And Mergers, William H. Page

UF Law Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court’s 1911 decision in Standard Oil gave us embryonic versions of two foundational standards of liability under the Sherman Act: the rule of reason under Section 1 and the monopoly power/exclusionary conduct test under Section 2. But a case filed later in 1911, United States v. United States Steel Corporation, shaped the understanding of Standard Oil’s standards of liability for decades. U.S. Steel, eventually decided by the Supreme Court in 1920, upheld the 1901 merger that created "the Corporation," as U.S. Steel was known. The majority found that the efforts of the Corporation and its …

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The Rule Of Reason And The Goals Of Antitrust: An Economic Approach, Roger D. Blair, D. Daniel Sokol Jan 2012

The Rule Of Reason And The Goals Of Antitrust: An Economic Approach, Roger D. Blair, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

In this paper, we discuss the problem of the rule of reason and the welfare standard in antitrust. We begin with the Introduction (Section I), which provides an overview of the problem. In Section II, we review the Supreme Court’s guidance on the standard for conducting a rule of reason analysis. Put simply, the Supreme Court has failed to identify clearly what standard to use in conducting a rule of reason inquiry. After a careful — albeit selective — reading of Supreme Court opinions it is simply not clear. While a case can be made for total welfare as the …

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Cartels, Corporate Compliance, And What Practitioners Really Think About Enforcement, D. Daniel Sokol Jan 2012

Cartels, Corporate Compliance, And What Practitioners Really Think About Enforcement, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article shows the limitations to the optimal deterrence-inspired cartel enforcement policy currently used by the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. This article employs both quantitative and qualitative survey evidence of cartel practitioners to shed light upon the realities of US cartel enforcement policy. The empirical evidence provided by the practitioner surveys challenges the traditional assumptions behind the success of the DOJ’s cartel program. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that firms regularly game the leniency program to punish their competitors. For various reasons, firms and the DOJ have strong incentives to settle rather than to litigate cases in which …

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