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Full-Text Articles in Antitrust and Trade Regulation

Procedural Fairness In Antitrust Enforcement: The U.S. Perspective, Christopher S. Yoo, Hendrik M. Wendland Jan 2019

Procedural Fairness In Antitrust Enforcement: The U.S. Perspective, Christopher S. Yoo, Hendrik M. Wendland

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Due process and fairness in enforcement procedures represent a critical aspect of the rule of law. Allowing greater participation by the parties and making enforcement procedures more transparent serve several functions, including better decisionmaking, greater respect for government, stronger economic growth, promotion of investment, limits corruption and politically motivated actions, regulation of bureaucratic ambition, and greater control of agency staff whose vision do not align with agency leadership or who are using an enforcement matter to advance their careers. That is why such distinguished actors as the International Competition Network (ICN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the …

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Hipster Antitrust: New Bottles, Same Old W(H)Ine?, Christopher S. Yoo Apr 2018

Hipster Antitrust: New Bottles, Same Old W(H)Ine?, Christopher S. Yoo

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Although the debate over hipster antitrust is often portrayed as something new, experienced observers recognize it as a replay of an old argument that was resolved by the global consensus that antitrust should focus on consumer welfare rather than on the size of firms, the levels of industry concentration, and other considerations. Moreover, the history of the Federal Trade Commission’s Section 5 authority to prevent unfair methods of competition stands as a reminder of the dangers of allowing enforcement policy to be guided by vague and uncertain standards.

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The Actavis Inference: Theory And Practice, Aaron S. Edlin, C. Scott Hemphill, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Carl Shapiro Apr 2015

The Actavis Inference: Theory And Practice, Aaron S. Edlin, C. Scott Hemphill, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Carl Shapiro

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In FTC v. Actavis, Inc., the Supreme Court considered "reverse payment" settlements of patent infringement litigation. In such a settlement, a patentee pays the alleged infringer to settle, and the alleged infringer agrees not to enter the market for a period of time. The Court held that a reverse payment settlement violates antitrust law if the patentee is paying to avoid competition. The core insight of Actavis is the Actavis Inference: a large and otherwise unexplained payment, combined with delayed entry, supports a reasonable inference of harm to consumers from lessened competition.

This paper is an effort to assist courts …

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Actavis And Error Costs: A Reply To Critics, Aaron S. Edlin, C. Scott Hemphill, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Carl Shapiro Oct 2014

Actavis And Error Costs: A Reply To Critics, Aaron S. Edlin, C. Scott Hemphill, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Carl Shapiro

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The Supreme Court’s opinion in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc. provided fundamental guidance about how courts should handle antitrust challenges to reverse payment patent settlements. In our previous article, Activating Actavis, we identified and operationalized the essential features of the Court’s analysis. Our analysis has been challenged by four economists, who argue that our approach might condemn procompetitive settlements.

As we explain in this reply, such settlements are feasible, however, only under special circumstances. Moreover, even where feasible, the parties would not actually choose such a settlement in equilibrium. These considerations, and others discussed in the reply, serve to …

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Non-Price Competition In “Substitute" Drugs: The Ftc's Blind Spot, Gregory Dolin Oct 2014

Non-Price Competition In “Substitute" Drugs: The Ftc's Blind Spot, Gregory Dolin

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As the recent case of United States v. Lundbeck illustrates, the Federal Trade Commission’s lack of knowledge in medical and pharmacological sciences affects its evaluation of transactions between medical and pharmaceutical companies that involve transfers of rights to manufacture or sell drugs, causing the agency to object to such transactions without solid basis for doing so. This article argues that in order to properly define a pharmaceutical market, one must not just consider the condition that competing drugs are meant to treat, but also take into account whether there are “off-label” drugs that are used to treat a relevant condition, …

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Should Section 5 Guidelines Focus On Economic Efficiency Or Consumer Choice?, Robert H. Lande May 2014

Should Section 5 Guidelines Focus On Economic Efficiency Or Consumer Choice?, Robert H. Lande

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FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright is right that it would be desirable for the Commission to issue Section 5 antitrust guidelines. This article will demonstrate, however, that the best way to formulate Section 5 guidelines is to focus them on the goal of protecting consumer choice, rather than to embrace Commissioner Wright's proposal to neuter the FTC Act by confining it in an economic efficiency straitjacket. Only if Section 5 guidelines were formulated appropriately would they improve consumer welfare during the Commission's second century.

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Activating Actavis, Aaron Edlin, C. Scott Hemphill, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Carl Shapiro Oct 2013

Activating Actavis, Aaron Edlin, C. Scott Hemphill, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Carl Shapiro

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In Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc., the Supreme Court provided fundamental guidance about how courts should handle antitrust challenges to reverse payment patent settlements. The Court came down strongly in favor of an antitrust solution to the problem, concluding that “an antitrust action is likely to prove more feasible administratively than the Eleventh Circuit believed.” At the same time, Justice Breyer’s majority opinion acknowledged that the Court did not answer every relevant question. The opinion closed by “leav[ing] to the lower courts the structuring of the present rule-of-reason antitrust litigation.”

This article is an effort to help courts and …

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How The Ftc Could Beat Google, Robert H. Lande, Jonathan L. Rubin Oct 2012

How The Ftc Could Beat Google, Robert H. Lande, Jonathan L. Rubin

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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is rumored to be deciding whether to bring a “pure Section 5” case against Google as a result of complaints that the company unfairly favors its own offerings over those of its rivals in its search results. But the case will fail miserably at the hands of a reviewing court and the agency will be confined to relatively non-controversial enforcement violations if the FTC fails to impose upon itself a tightly bounded and constrained legal framework that contains clear limiting principles. The only way a court will allow the FTC to pursue a pure Section …

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The Intel And Microsoft Settlements, Robert H. Lande Sep 2010

The Intel And Microsoft Settlements, Robert H. Lande

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This article briefly compares and contrasts the recent U.S. Federal Trade Commission's antitrust settlement with Intel, and the antitrust cases brought against Microsoft. The article praises the FTC's settlement with Intel, and predicts that history will judge it very favorably compared to the settlement by the U.S. Department of Justice of its antitrust case against Microsoft.

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Efficiencies In Merger Analysis: Alchemy In The Age Of Empiricism?, Thomas L. Greaney Jan 2009

Efficiencies In Merger Analysis: Alchemy In The Age Of Empiricism?, Thomas L. Greaney

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One is hard-pressed to find in law an undertaking more fraught with uncertainty than the application of the efficiencies defense in merger analysis. Generalist fact finders (judges) and politically-attuned government officials (prosecutors and regulators) are charged with two Herculean tasks: (1) predicting the outcome of organic changes in business enterprises and (2) comparing the magnitude of those changes to the equally uncertain amount of harm to future competition that the transaction will cause. Given the enormous, perhaps intractable, uncertainty of this inquiry, it is therefore paradoxical that many of the strongest advocates for strengthening the role of efficiencies analysis in …

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Thirty Years Of Solicitude: Antitrust Law And Physician Cartels, Thomas L. Greaney Jan 2007

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

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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 …

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Re: Commission's Request For Comments On The Use Of Disgorgement In Antitrust Matters, Robert H. Lande Mar 2002

Re: Commission's Request For Comments On The Use Of Disgorgement In Antitrust Matters, Robert H. Lande

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This is a submission to the FTC that discusses this agency's use of disgorgement as a remedy in Antitrust matters. It strongly supports the Commission's use of the disgorgement remedy, and gives reasons why the public interest would be enhanced if the agency used this remedy more often. This document was submitted on behalf of the American Antitrust Institute.

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Night Landings On An Aircraft Carrier: Hospital Mergers And Antitrust Law, Thomas L. Greaney Jan 1997

Night Landings On An Aircraft Carrier: Hospital Mergers And Antitrust Law, Thomas L. Greaney

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Abstract: Analysis of the competitive effects of hospital mergers requires antitrust tribunals to make exceedingly fine-tuned appraisals of complex economic relationships. The law requires fact finding in a number of complex areas, e.g., defining product and geographic markets, predicting the possibility of that firms will engage in coordinated behavior; and assessing efficiencies flowing from the merger. Further complicating the process is the fact that these decisions require judgments regarding what the future may hold in an industry undergoing revolutionary change. Like pilots landing at night aboard an aircraft carrier, courts are aiming for a target that is small, shifting and …

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Managed Competition, Integrated Delivery Systems And Antitrust, Thomas L. Greaney Jan 1994

Managed Competition, Integrated Delivery Systems And Antitrust, Thomas L. Greaney

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A central question confronting proponents of managed competition during the health reform debate in 1994 was whether competitive networks or integrated delivery systems would emerge. Under reformers’ vision, controlling costs depended on the emergence of a sufficient number of efficient and viable integrated delivery systems. Conversely, if one or a few integrated networks dominate the market for physician or hospital services, rivalry on the main issues of health care cost control would likely dissipate. This article argues that vigilant and sensible antitrust enforcement was also a prerequisite for the success of the managed competition model. Despite the considerable emphasis on …

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New Forces Chip Away At Agencies' Policy Of Antitrust Abandonment, Joe Sims, Robert H. Lande Apr 1987

New Forces Chip Away At Agencies' Policy Of Antitrust Abandonment, Joe Sims, Robert H. Lande

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Antitrust is at a crossroads. the federal agencies are dominated by the economic approach of the Chicago school, but congress and the states are expressing sharp dissent.

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Competitive Reform In Health Care: The Vulnerable Revolution, Thomas L. Greaney Jan 1987

Competitive Reform In Health Care: The Vulnerable Revolution, Thomas L. Greaney

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This article, written at the dawn of the era of "competitive reform" in health care examines the case and prospects for the introduction of competition in health care delivery and financing. It observes the failures of the ancienne regime of fee for service payment and professional sovereignty and discusses the benefits of market-oriented policy. Its contribution, still salient today, is the lesson that competition cannot succeed without regulation. It identifies legislative, professional, and cultural hurdles to effective implementation of competitive norms and policies that have impeded the success of competition policy in health care.

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