Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Common Ownership And Executive Incentives: The Implausibility Of Compensation As An Anticompetitive Mechanism, David I. Walker

Faculty Scholarship

Mutual funds, pension funds and other institutional investors are a growing presence in U.S. equity markets, and these investors frequently hold large stakes in shares of competing companies. Because these common owners might prefer to maximize the values of their portfolios of companies, rather than the value of individual companies in isolation, this new reality has lead to a concern that companies in concentrated industries with high degrees of common ownership might compete less vigorously with each other than they otherwise would. But what mechanism would link common ownership with reduced competition? Some commentators argue that one of the most …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Law And Economics Scholars In Support Of Appellee And Affirmance, Mark A. Lemley, A. Douglas Melamed, Steven C. Salop

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In reliance on Qualcomm’s FRAND promises, key SSOs incorporated its technologies into wireless standards. Qualcomm takes the position that its patented technologies are essential to those standards and, therefore, that any firm making or selling a standard-compliant product infringes its patents. As a result, the SSOs’ incorporation of Qualcomm’s patented technologies into wireless standards created a huge market for licenses to Qualcomm’s SEPs.

The district court held that Qualcomm used its chipset monopolies, not only to extract the high chip-set prices to which it was entitled, but also to perpetuate those monopolies by disadvantaging rival chip-makers and raising entry barriers. …

Intellectual Property For Breakfast: Market Power And Informative Symbols In The Marketplace, P. Sean Morris

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article continues to examine an important question: are trademarks a source of market power, or, put differently, when are trademarks an antitrust problem? This fundamental question is a cause of division among antitrust and intellectual property law scholars. However, by raising the question and presenting some scenarios that can provide answers, my hope is that contemporary antitrust and intellectual property scholars can explore some of its implications. As part of my own quest to address this question, I explore the proposition that creative deception and the wealth-generating capacity of trademarks are unorthodox elements that actually contribute to allegations of …

Analysis Of Ship Clearance In The Maldives: Trade Facilitation Perspective, Zoona Ahmed

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Inconsistency's Many Forms In Investor-State Dispute Settlement And Implications For Reform, Lise Johnson, Lisa E. Sachs

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Attracting investment in agriculture has been a key policy goal of governments in the global south. Development partners have supported these policies. But what do governments hope to achieve by attracting investment in the agricultural sector? Why are companies interested in investing? What is in it for local communities? And what is the role of lawyers? This primer provides an introduction to some of the key issues that arise in the negotiation of contracts linked to investments in agriculture, and practical guidance for how to approach common issues. Section 1 of this primer outlines the typical goals of three important …

Antitrust Violations As Private Enforcement, Abby L. Timmons

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

On the whole, the dismantling of monopolies relies heavily on public enforcement. While the opportunity for private enforcement exists in the antitrust context, it is limited, as not all so-called "monopolies" commit antitrust violations. For example, where barriers to entry in a particular industry are high—such as in the case of phone carriers or airlines, both of which must build an infrastructure to support their business—sufficient competition may not exist to create options for the consumer. In situations like these, the federal government generally must step in to break up the monopoly. However, this interference happens infrequently, and these efforts …

Lane Violation: Why The Ncaa's Amateurism Rules Have Overstepped Antitrust Protection & How To Correct, Alexander Knuth

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

The NCAA is in the midst of an era that will define the future of collegiate athletics and determine how young people participate in sports for the foreseeable future. This Essay ultimately concludes that both the NCAA and its athletes would benefit from a system that allows for the exploitation of athletes' name, image, or likeness (NIL) rights while preserving the core educational and nonprofessional nature of college sports as a product. Currently the NCAA requires its athletes to maintain a very broadly defined amateur status to remain eligible for competition. The current amateurism definition states that athletes must forego …

What Do Chinese Clients Want?, Ji Li, Wei Zhang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The world’s two largest economies are locked in an escalating trade war, and caught in the crossfire are hundreds of Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) that have made substantial U.S. investments. Facing heightened legal risks in a less hospitable environment, the Chinese MNCs increasingly depend on local lawyers. Yet, their purchase of U.S. legal service, a topic of both practical and theoretical importance, has received little attention. To fill the gap, this article empirically investigates how Chinese companies in the United States select their U.S. legal counsel. By analyzing a unique dataset, the article finds that Chinese MNC managers uniformly prioritize …

Combatting The Opioid Epidemic In Texas By Holding Big Pharma Manufacturers Liable, Katherine Spiser

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Antitrust And Regulating Big Data, D. Daniel Sokol, Roisin E. Comerford

D. Daniel Sokol

The collection of user data online has seen enormous growth in recent years. Consumers have benefited from this growth through an increase in free or heavily subsidized services, better quality offerings, and rapid innovation. At the same time, the debate about Big Data, and what it really means for consumers and competition, has grown louder. Many have focused on whether Big Data even presents an antitrust issue, and whether and how harms resulting from Big Data should be analyzed and remedied under the antitrust laws. The academic literature, however, has somewhat lagged behind the policy debate, and a closer inspection …

Reinvigorating Criminal Antitrust?, D. Daniel Sokol

D. Daniel Sokol

Contemporary rhetoric surrounding antitrust in an age of populism has potential implications with regard to criminal antitrust enforcement. In areas such as resale price maintenance, monopolization, and Robinson-Patman violations, antitrust criminalization remains the law on the books. Antitrust populists and traditional antitrust thinkers who embrace a singular economic goal of antitrust push to enforce antitrust law that is already “on the books.” A natural extension of enforcement by the antitrust populists would be to advocate the use of criminal sanctions, outside of collusion, for various antitrust violations which are “on the books” but have not been used in over a …

Troubled Waters Between U.S. And European Antitrust, D. Daniel Sokol

D. Daniel Sokol

Antitrust is an important area of law and policy for most companies in the world. Having divergent rules across antitrust systems means that the same economic behavior may be treated differently depending on the jurisdiction, leading to disparate outcomes in which one jurisdiction finds illegal behavior (but the other does not) when the underlying behavior may be pro-competitive. This disparate set of outcomes creates a world in which the most stringent antitrust system may produce the global standard. As a result, if the antitrust rules applied are too rigid, they threaten to hurt consumers not merely in the jurisdiction where …

American Oligarchy: How The Enfeebling Of Antitrust Law Corrodes The Republic, Zachariah Foge

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

In this note, I will argue that the current antitrust framework is misguided and based on erroneous legal and economic theories originating from the Chicago School. I will argue that the neoclassical approach is not only wrong when examining the legislative intent of Congress but is also in contravention with the policy goals and foundational principles of antitrust law. Furthermore, I will argue that the Chicago School’s narrow, outcome-based view of antitrust is ill-equipped to deal with the demands of the twenty-first century and especially with the online marketplace. The tech giants are unprecedented in their scale, and the online …

The Rule Of Reason, Herbert Hovenkamp

Florida Law Review

Antitrust’s rule of reason was born out of a thirty-year Supreme Court debate concerning the legality of multi-firm restraints on competition. By the late 1920s the basic contours of the rule for restraints among competitors was roughly established. Antitrust policy toward vertical restraints remained much more unstable, however, largely because their effects were so poorly understood. This Article provides a litigation field guide for antitrust claims under the rule of reason—or more precisely, for situations when application of the rule of reason is likely. At the time pleadings are drafted and even up to the point of summary judgment, the …

The New Doj: Lessons Learned From The Ticketmaster Live Nation Decision, Alan J. Meese

Alan J. Meese

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Future Of Dairy Cooperatives In The Modern Marketplace: Redeveloping The Capper-Volstead Act, Sarah K. Phillips

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Agriculture plays a fundamental role in the U.S. economy as a multibillion-dollar industry that feeds people all over the world. However, over the past decade, the dairy industry in particular has changed from a reliable sector of the greater agricultural industry into an unsettled, politically-charged, and fractured group. Dairy farmers’ consistently receiving low milk prices has facilitated this divide. Tired of being ignored and underpaid, dairy farmers are demanding change in the current dairy market structure.

Federal Milk Marketing Orders and a variety of statutes regulate the dairy industry, but the 1922 Capper-Volstead Act remains the most notable piece of …

Amazon And Platform Antitrust, Ben Bloodstein

Fordham Law Review

With its decision in Ohio v. American Express, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time embraced the recently developed, yet increasingly prolific, concept of the two-sided platform. Through advances in technology, platforms, which serve as intermediaries allowing two groups to transact, are increasingly ubiquitous, and many of the biggest tech companies operate in this fashion. Amazon Marketplace, for example, provides a platform for third-party vendors to sell directly to consumers through Amazon’s web and mobile interfaces. At the same time that platforms and their scholarship have evolved, a burgeoning antitrust movement has also developed which focuses on the …

Ecosystem Competition And The Antitrust Laws, Daniel A. Crane

Articles

Conventional antitrust norms analyze market power—as a stepping stone to anticompetitive effects and, hence, prohibited conduct—from the perspective of product substitutability. Two goods or services are said to compete with one another when they are reasonably interchangeable from the perspective of consumers, or to put it in more formal economic terms, when there is cross-elasticity of demand between them. Conversely, when two goods or services are not reasonably interchangeable, they are not horizontally related and are said not to compete with one another. Since a concern over horizontal agreements and horizontal effects dominate antitrust—courts even analyze vertical agreement or merger …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.