Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Antitrust In Digital Markets, John M. Newman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Antitrust law has largely failed to address the challenges posed by digital markets. At the turn of the millennium, the antitrust enterprise engaged in intense debate over whether antitrust doctrine, much of it developed during a bygone era of smokestack industries, could or should evolve to address digital markets. Eventually, a consensus emerged: although the basic doctrine is supple enough to apply to new technologies, courts and enforcers should adopt a defendant-friendly, hands-off approach.

But this pro-defendant position is deeply-and dangerously-flawed. Economic theory, empirical research, and extant judicial and regulatory authority all contradict the prevailing views regarding power, conduct, and …

Rethinking Antitrust Injury, Roger D. Blair, Jeffrey L. Harrison

Vanderbilt Law Review

Substantive changes in antitrust law since 1977 have had a dramatic impact on the vitality of antitrust enforcement.' Recent "procedural" changes now seem likely to have as great an influence. In the procedural area, the emphasis has been on antitrust standing and anti-trust injury. As a result of recent judicial interpretations of these requirements, antitrust plaintiffs face increasingly formidable hurdles. As courts focus on questions of standing and injury, important discussions about whether a practice should be held to a per se or rule of reason standards frequently are immaterial. If there is no qualified plaintiff,the substantive issue need never …

Anticompetitive Practices In Great Britain: Expanded Enforcement Under The Competition Act 1980, Carol B. Swanson

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The current antitrust laws are scattered among numerous statutory provisions. The British approach to antitrust laws is expressed in separate attacks on restrictive practices as opposed to broad attacks on monopolies and mergers. Restrictive agreements are controlled through a public registration process and reviewed by a specially-created court. Resale price maintenance is banned through similar procedures. Monopolies and mergers are investigated differently, with entire market sectors referred to a commission especially designed to determine whether a monopoly or merger operates against the public interest. This overall statutory structure is both too narrow, and too broad. It is too limited because …

Decision To Prosecute: Organization And Public Policy In The Antitrust Division, C. Paul Rogers, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

Professor Suzanne Weaver's first book, Decision To Prosecute: Organization and Public Policy in the Antitrust Division, is a study of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, its institutional behavior and its mechanisms for public policy formation.Although Professor Weaver's audience is not limited to the legal community, Decision To Prosecute will stimulate in two ways the interest of antitrust students, scholars, and practitioners. On one level, the reader will learn something about the internal operations of the Antitrust Division, and may reconsider his preformed judgments about that influential, trenchant branch of the Justice Department.