Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Astroturf Campaigns: Transparency In Telecom Merger Review, Victoria Peng

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Large telecommunications companies looking to merge spend millions of dollars in their lobbying efforts to clear regulatory hurdles and obtain approval for their proposed mergers. Corporations such as AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner use public participation processes as vehicles to influence regulatory decision-making. In the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) merger review context, the notice- and-comment process and public hearings have become fertile breeding grounds for hidden corporate influence. Corporations spend millions on corporate social responsibility programs and call upon nonprofit organizations that receive their largesse to represent their corporate interests as grassroots interests when the FCC seeks public comment. This …

The Pendulum Swings: Reconsidering Corporate Criminal Prosecution, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

Corporate crime continues to occur at an alarming rate, yet disagreement persists among scholars and practitioners about the role of corporate criminal prosecution. Some argue that corporations should face criminal prosecution for their misconduct, while others would reserve criminal prosecution for individual corporate officials. Perhaps as a result of this conflict, there has been a dramatic increase over the last decade in the use of deferred prosecution and non-prosecution agreements for some corporate crimes, even as the government continues to bring criminal charges for other corporate crimes. To move beyond our erratic approach to corporate crime, we need a better …

Patent Punting: How Fda And Antitrust Courts Undermine The Hatch-Waxman Act To Avoid Dealing With Patents, Rebecca S. Eisenberg, Daniel A. Crane

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Under the Hatch-Waxman Act, patent law and FDA regulation work together to determine the timing of generic entry in the market for drugs. But FDA has sought to avoid any responsibility for reading patents, insisting that its role in administering the patent provisions of the Hatch-Waxman Act is purely ministerial. This gap in regulatory oversight has allowed innovators to use irrelevant patents to defer generic competition. Meanwhile, patent litigation has set the stage for anticompetitive settlements rather than adjudication of the patent issues in the courts. As these settlements have provoked antitrust litigation, antitrust courts have proven no more willing …

A New Prescription To Balance Secrecy And Disclosure In Drug-Approval Processes, Gerrit M. Beckhaus

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

To obtain approval to market a drug, a manufacturer must disclose significant amounts of research data to the government agency that oversees the approval process. The data often include information that could help advance scientific progress, and are therefore of great value. But current laws in both the United States and Europe give secrecy great weight. This Article proposes an obligatory sealed-bid auction of the sensitive information based on the experience with similar auctions in mergers and acquisitions, to balance manufacturers' interest in secrecy and the public interest in disclosure.

Unfit For Prime Time: Why Cable Television Regulations Cannot Perform Trinko's 'Antitrust Function', Keith Klovers

Michigan Law Review

Until recently, regulation and antitrust law operated in tandem to safeguard competition in regulated industries. In three recent decisions-Trinko, Credit Suisse, and Linkline-the Supreme Court limited the operation of the antitrust laws when regulation "performs the antitrust function." This Note argues that cable programming regulations-which are in some respects factually similar to the telecommunications regulations at issue in Trinko and Linkline-do not perform the antitrust function because they cannot deter anticompetitive conduct. As a result, Trinko and its siblings should not foreclose antitrust claims for damages that arise out of certain cable programming disputes.

The Case For Rebalancing Antitrust And Regulation, Howard A. Shelanski

Michigan Law Review

The continued growth of forensic DNA databases has brought about greater interest in a search method known as "familial" or "kinship" matching. Whereas a typical database search seeks the source of a crime-scene stain by making an exact match between a known person and the DNA sample, familial searching instead looks for partial matches in order to find potential relatives of the source. The use of a familial DNA search to identify the alleged "Grim Sleeper" killer in California brought national attention to the method, which has many proponents. In contrast, this Article argues against the practice of familial searching …

Reflections On Section 5 Of The Ftc Act And The Ftc's Case Against Intel, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

The Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC’s”) unprecedented enforcement action against Intel raises profound issues concerning the scope of the FTC’s powers to give a construction to Section 5 of the FTC Act that goes beyond the substantive reach of the Sherman Act. While I have urged the FTC to assert such independence from the Sherman Act, this is the wrong case to make a break. Indeed, if anything, Intel poses a risk of seriously setting back the development of an independent Section 5 power by provoking a hostile appellate court to rebuke the FTC’s effort and cabin the FTC’s powers in …

The Problem Of New Uses, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Articles

Discovering new uses for drugs that are already on the market seems like it ought to be the low-lying fruit of biopharmaceutical research and development (R&D). Firms have already made significant investments in developing these drugs and bringing them to market, including testing them in clinical trials, shepherding them through the FDA regulatory approval process, building production facilities, and training sales staff to market them to physicians. By this point, the drugs have begun to enjoy goodwill among patients and physicians and casual observations in the course of clinical experience may point to potential new uses. One might expect that …

Reforming Fcc Regulation Of Dominant Telephone Carriers: Putting Some Teeth Into The Test For Predation, Thomas K. Gump

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note examines the ineffective protections against predatory pricing by AT&T contained in the price cap scheme. Part I outlines price cap regulation and explains how the FCC hopes that a test based on the average variable cost standard will detect predatory pricing. Part II argues that the FCC erred in adopting an average variable cost standard as the test for telecommunications predation because that standard ignores the high fixed costs common to all firms in the industry. Part II demonstrates that AT&T could engage in predatory pricing despite the protections contained in the regulatory scheme. Part II then examines …

Abuse Of Trademarks: A Proposal For Ompulsory Licensing, Mara L. Babin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article neither deals with the propriety of the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) proposed order nor evaluates the effectiveness of compulsory trademark licensing as a remedy for unfair trade practices.8 Rather, the pending cereal industry case is used as a point of departure for an examination of the problem of trademark abuse and the responses of the courts, the Congress, and the FTC to it. Acknowledging the legality of compulsory licensing of trademarks, the article suggests legislation which will incorporate licensing and standards for its application. Such legislation would make licensing an accessible remedy for trademark abuse while accommodating both …

Restraint Of Trade--Trading Stamps--The Federal Trade Commission And The Green Stamp: The Effect Upon Competition Of Restrictions On Distribution And Redemption Of Trading Stamps, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Sperry and Hutchinson Company (S & H), the largest trading stamp company in the United States, has maintained two policies throughout its seventy-two years of business. The one-for-ten policy requires retailers licensed by S & H to issue stamps to consumers at the rate of one stamp for every ten cents worth of merchandise purchased. The intent of this policy is to prevent retailers from engaging in "multiple stamping"-the practice of giving more than one stamp for every ten-cent purchase. This restricted rate of issuance is maintained through contractual agreements between the stamp company and its licensees. The second policy …

Cease And Desist: The History, Effect, And Scope Of Clayton Act Orders Of The Federal Trade Commission, Thomas E. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

A cease and desist order is not entered in a vacuum. What an order should say or require depends upon the effect which the order is to have. A substantial portion of the present study is therefore concerned with the array of effects which may result from the order's entry, and with the relationship between those effects and the order itself. Not all of the detailed discussion of enforcement procedures which follows may seem directly relevant to the content of the FTC's orders. There are important unresolved issues within the enforcement procedures themselves which warrant examination for their own sake …

The Ftc's Power To Seek Preliminary Injunctions In Anti-Merger Cases, James H. Cohen

Michigan Law Review

This Comment will examine the bases and the implications of the Supreme Court's holding. It will point out a number of problems raised by granting the FTC this remedial power, and will suggest that the situations in which preliminary injunctions may be obtained from a court of appeals should be strictly limited.

Government Regulation Of Bank Mergers: The Revolving Door OfPhiladelphia Bank, Alexander E. Bennett

Michigan Law Review

On November 15, 1960, the second and third largest Philadelphia banks, the Philadelphia National Bank-its assets 1.09 billion dollars, its deposits 603 million dollars-and the Girard Trust Com Exchange Bank-its assets 757 million dollars, its deposits 560 million dollars-applied to the Comptroller of the Currency for approval to merge. The application stated the intention of the Philadelphia National (PNB) to acquire the Girard, including all its assets, deposits, capital, and retained earnings, thereupon to disgorge stock in a resulting bank to Girard shareholders at a ratio of 1.2875 to 1. Both Girard and PNB had a history of merger and …

The Civil Investigative Demand: New Fact-Finding Powers For The Antitrust Division, Richard L. Perry, William Simon

Michigan Law Review

The complexity, scope and length of modem antitrust litigation bring to prominence the procedures by which evidence - particularly documentary evidence - is discovered and placed before the courts and administrative agencies. Fact-finding mechanisms now available for ferreting out and prosecuting violations make up an imposing array. These include the grand jury subpoena, the discovery provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil and Criminal Procedure and the subpoena and visitorial powers of certain administrative agencies. The "civil investigative demand," a precomplaint compulsory process, is a new weapon proposed to be added to this arsenal. Few dispute the desirability of new …

Regulation Of Business - Antitrust Laws - Effect Upon A Subsequent Antitrust Suit Of Fcc Approval Of An Exchange Of Television Stations, John F. Powell S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

United States v. Radio Corporation of America-Creation of independent regulatory agencies presented the courts with the problem of allocating jurisdiction whenever the determination of proper judicial action was found to require the resolution of issues which an administrative agency was competent to resolve. To meet this problem the doctrine of "primary jurisdiction" was developed whereby administrative issues are to be decided by the agency prior to the court's determination of issues not within the realm of the agency. Application of the doctrine is based on the need for efficient and uniform agency regulation and the desirability of utilizing agency …

Antitrust Administration And Enforcement, John T. Chadwell

Michigan Law Review

The importance of the nation's antitrust policy requires that administration and enforcement powers and techniques be equal to the huge task of effectively safeguarding competition. The recommendations of the Attorney General's Committee represent a statesmanlike effort to balance the need for effective enforcement with the need for the preservation of fairness and the conservation of time and resources in antitrust litigation. Some of the recommendations will undoubtedly engender heated controversy; others seem relatively uncontroversial.

Many individual topics are dealt with in the Report of the committee and space does not permit comment upon all of them. The following discussion is …

Administrative Law-Federal Trade Commission-Constitutional And Statutory Authority To Order Additional Compliance Reports, Charles Myneder S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Proceeding under section 5 of its organic act, the Federal Trade Commission issued an order requiring defendants to cease and desist from engaging in certain trade practices. The court of appeals, in its decree affirming the order, directed compliance reports to be filed with the commission within a specified time, reserving jurisdiction to enter further orders. Four years after the compliance reports were filed, the commission, on its own motion, ordered additional reports to show continued compliance. Defendants refused to report, challenging the authority of the commission to issue the order. The district court dismissed suit by the commission for …

Some Problems In The Enforcement Of The Antitrust Laws, Wendell Berge

Michigan Law Review

There has been much discussion through the years about the evils of monopoly, monopolistic practices, and unreasonable restraints of trade. We have always paid lip service to the ideal of free competition. But we have done little in this country to cope with these evils. We have done little to make our competitive ideal effective.

Trade Restraints - Federal Trade Commission - False Representation As Unfair Method Of Competion, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

An order to cease and desist, directed against the defendant publisher and others, forbade the following trade practices: representing that its encyclopedias were given away and that only the "extension service" was sold; representing the work as given away to selected persons among whom the prospective buyer was one; representing the work as new; selling the same under two names; representing its usual price as higher than that at which it was offered; representing any person as a contributor who was not a contributor; representing any person as giving a testimonial who had not done so; publishing garbled testimonials; and …

Constitutional Law - Price Fixing - Limits Of Administrative Discretion

Michigan Law Review

An order of the New York Milk Control Board prescribed a minimum selling price to be charged by wholesale dealers to their customers and also a minimum buying price to be paid by the dealers to producers. Competition fixed the minimum selling price as the maximum obtainable. Plaintiff, a wholesale dealer, could not operate at a profit and sued to enjoin enforcement of the order as arbitrary and hence violative of due process. Held, that upon these facts only, with nothing to show that efficient dealers could not operate profitably, the price limits were not arbitrary. Hegeman Farms Corp. …

Constitutional Law -Validity Of State Recovery Acts Adopting Federal Codes, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

Among the interesting problems raised by the enactment of state recovery legislation is the problem growing out of the attempted adoption by the states of the codes of fair competition formulated under the authority of the National Industrial Recovery Act. The validity of such state legislation may be questioned in light of the familiar doctrine of non-delegability of legislative power - a doctrine that has been written into the constitutions of both the federal and state governments by judicial determination. Before considering the application of this doctrine to the problem at hand, it will be well to refer to two …

Federal Trade Commission-Recent Trends In Interpretation Of The Federal Trade Commission Act

Michigan Law Review

The Federal Trade Commission has never been a favored child of the courts. Beginning with the first case to which the Commission was a party, the attitude of the judiciary has clearly been unfriendly. The Commission gets its powers from the Clayton Act and from the Federal Trade Commission Act. The courts have interpreted the Clayton Act strictly, and there is no sign of a change of heart by the majority of the Supreme Court in that respect; it is believed, however, that a few of the recent cases under the Federal Trade Commission Act, both in the Supreme Court …

Federal Anti-Trust Law And The National Industrial Recovery Act, Howard E. Wahrenbrock

Michigan Law Review

The economic struggle for existence - the competitive system - which has been principally depended upon to equate the production and consumption of economic goods, is not self-sustaining. Extreme forms of that struggle - engrossing, forestalling, regrating, contracts in restraint of trade, monopoly, unfair competition, to mention some forms at the higher stages of legal development - have had to be restrained by law. Their restriction has been called for to protect the poor and economically weak from oppression by the rich and economically powerful; under a system of complete laissez faire, competition would bring about the elimination of the …

Corporations - New Types Of Securities Under Blue Sky Legislation

Michigan Law Review

The plaintiff company, in order to secure capital to finance the purchase and construction of retail gasoline stations and bulk plants in Wisconsin, proposed to sell coupon books for the sum of $35 per book. Purchases made with these coupons entitled the holder of the book to certain credits which, upon accumulation, were to be redistributed to him in cash upon presentation of coupons in the amount of 25 cents or more. Along with each coupon book there was to be issued to each purchaser a so-called good-will contract which, after stating its purpose as being to secure the good …

Trade Restraints - Resale Price Maintenance

Michigan Law Review

Petition to review an order of the Federal Trade Commission requiring the petitioner to cease and desist certain trade methods found to be unfair. Held, that while the petitioner had a right to refuse to sell goods to those who did not sell them at the suggested resale prices, with the further right to state to them its reasons for so doing, the petitioner was rightly ordered to desist from requiring dealers, placing orders, to give assurance that they would be governed by the suggested resale prices as a condition precedent to the acceptance of the orders. Shakespeare Co. …

Cooperative Associations And The Public, John Hanna

Michigan Law Review

The American Institute of Cooperation at its first summer meeting in Philadelphia in 1925, devoted many hours to a consideration of the definition of agricultural cooperation. Even at that time cooperative associations had been described, if not defined, by federal legislation. The Bureau of Internal Revenue, the War Finance Corporation and the Intermediate Credit Banks, had also been compelled on numerous occasions to decide whether or not a particular association was entitled to the privileges accorded cooperatives. A determination of the nature of a cooperative was implied in the standard marketing acts adopted in nearly all of the American states. …