Evidence Commons^™

Probability, Presumptions And Evidentiary Burdens In Antitrust Analysis: Revitalizing The Rule Of Reason For Exclusionary Conduct, Andrew I. Gavil, Steven C. Salop

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The conservative critique of antitrust law has been highly influential and has facilitated a transformation of antitrust standards of conduct since the 1970s and led to increasingly more permissive standards of conduct. While these changes have taken many forms, all were influenced by the view that competition law was over-deterrent. Critics relied heavily on the assumption that the durability and costs of false positive errors far exceeded those of false negatives.

Many of the assumptions that guided this retrenchment of antitrust rules were mistaken and advances in the law and in economic analysis have rendered them anachronistic, particularly with respect …

The At&T/Time Warner Merger: How Judge Leon Garbled Professor Nash, Steven C. Salop

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The US District Court in the AT&T/Time Warner vertical merger case has issued its opinion permitting the merger. At of this writing in August 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has appealed to the DC Circuit and filed its brief, as have several Amici. I was disappointed that the DOJ was unable to prove its case to the satisfaction of Judge Leon, the trial judge. Notwithstanding the court’s confidence that the merger is procompetitive, I remain concerned that it will have anti- competitive effects, both on its own and following the subsequent vertical mergers in the TV industry, which this …