Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

The Slogans And Goals Of Antitrust Law, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

This is a comparative examination of the slogans and goals most advocated for antitrust law today – namely, that antitrust should be concerned with “bigness,” that it should intervene when actions undermine the “competitive process,” or that it should be concerned about promoting some conception of welfare. “Bigness” as an antitrust concern targets firms based on absolute size rather than share of a market, as antitrust traditionally has done. The bigness approach entails that antitrust cannot be concerned about low prices, or the welfare of consumers and labor. Nondominant firms could not sustain very high prices or cause significant reductions …

Freeing Cryptoassets From Howey: A Defense Of Genuine Token Offering, Kathryn A. Daly

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is the most powerful regulator of the U.S. securities market and serves to “protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation.” The agency’s task of protecting retail investors and regulating market participants has been, at times, reduced to a binary choice between “Main Street” investors and “Wall Street” insiders. Some regulators and legislators rely on this binary to put pressure on cryptoassets, claiming that more regulation leads to more effective investor protections. This Note rejects that premise. Genuine tokens offerings (i.e., unregistered security offerings not designed to defraud investors) must be …

A Continental Rift? The United States And European Union's Contrasting Approaches To Regulating The Monopolistic Behavior Of Gatekeeper Platforms, Peter R. Enia

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Over the past decade, gatekeeper platforms, such as Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon), have created highly monopolistic business models to benefit themselves while undermining third-party merchants on digital marketplaces. To illustrate, Amazon collects third-party merchant and consumer data on its marketplace to improve its private-label brands while simultaneously selling them alongside third-party merchant products, creating a significant conflict of interest business model. To address this anticompetitive behavior, the United States (U.S.) and the European Union (E.U.) have proposed contrasting approaches. The U.S., through the Ending Platform Monopolies Act, offers a structural separation remedy, giving the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission …

Bardy Diagnostics V. Hill-Rom: New Lessons On Material Adverse Effect Clauses, Robert T. Miller

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In Bardy Diagnostics, Inc. v. Hill-Rom, Inc., the Delaware Court of Chancery once again had to apply a Material Adverse Effect clause to determine whether an acquirer was required to close an acquisition. The case develops the law of MAEs in several important ways. First, the agreement between the parties substituted for the customary MAE objects (e.g., the company’s business, financial condition, and results of operations) a bespoke defined term. The court interpreted the definition of that term in a way that made it functionally equivalent to more customary MAE objects; then, consistent with an unacknowledged trend in Delaware law, …

Cognitive Foreclosure, Peter O'Loughlin

Georgia State University Law Review

Digital markets now fundamentally intertwine with our social and economic lives. International enforcement actions—the United States (U.S.) and European Union (E.U.) Google cases in particular—demonstrate from a behavioral economic perspective how digital platforms may be beginning to implicate antitrust’s two most fundamental doctrinal components—conduct and market power—in nuanced ways. In short, the regulatory and policy landscape showcases that we may be moving closer towards an antitrust world whereby firms can manipulate consumers’ psychological shortcomings to foreclose competition—a new form of nefarious conduct that might appropriately be termed “cognitive foreclosure.” Yet as a demand-side market failure, one should be cautious about …

The Abuse Of Offsets As Procompetitive Justification: Restoring The Proper Role Of Efficiencies After Ohio V. American Express And Ncaa V. Alston, Ted Tatos, Hal Singer

Georgia State University Law Review

Under the rule-of-reason framework, litigation involving the NCAA has condoned the practice of crediting purported benefits to one group as an “offset” to antitrust injury suffered by another. Although the Ohio v. American Express decision addressed countervailing effects on merchants versus cardholders within the same two-sided market (credit cards), NCAA v. Alston, consistent with the 1986 NCAA v. Board of Regents decision, acknowledged procompetitive justifications that occur in an entirely different market (the output market for viewing sporting events) than the market in which harm occurred (the labor market for college athletes). Both cases elevated the welfare of consumers above …

Coppa And Educational Technologies: The Need For Additional Online Privacy Protections For Students, Diana S. Skowronski

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New Antitrust Framework To Protect Mom And Pop From Big Tech, Cara Macdonald

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

While the economy declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, big technology companies like Amazon and Oracle experienced unprecedented growth and influence. Critics argue big technology companies are finding this level of success in-part due to anticompetitive practices. The crux of the debate rests on whether current, traditional antitrust laws are sufficient to cope with big technology companies. Some theorists argue that current laws are adequate, while others assert that antitrust laws are insufficient to regulate big technology companies because they are so different from the types of companies antitrust laws were designed to regulate. This article concludes that big tech companies …

International Trade, Theodore P. Brackemyre, Tessa V. Capeloto, Sylvia Y. Chen, Dharmendra Choudhary, Kenneth C. Daines, Jeffrey O. Frank, Cynthia C. Galvez, Geoffrey Goodale, Sahar Hafeez, Michael P. House, Bernd G. Janzen, Elizabeth S. Lee, Usha Neelakantan, Devin S. Sikes, David J. Townsend, Daniel Wilson, Shuaiqi Yuan

The Year in Review

No abstract provided.

International Antitrust, Miguel Del Pino, Elizabeth Avery, Arda Reznikas, Bruno Drago, Paola Pugliese, Milena Mundim, Adam S. Goodman, Simon Kupi, Peter Wang, Yizhe Zhang, Laurie-Ann Grelier, Peter Camesasca, Naval Satarawala Chopra, Aman Singh Sethi, Shigeyoshi Ezaki, Youngjin Jung, Luke Shin, Gene-Oh Kim, Lara Grenville, Jonathan Tickner, Jasvinder Nakhwal, Lisl Dunlap, Shoshana Speiser

The Year in Review

No abstract provided.

Customs Law, Luis F. Arandia, D. "Bonni" Van Blarcom, James Feroli, Greg Kanargelidis, Daniel L. Kiselbach, Kathleen M. Murphy, Matt Nakachi, Rebecca Rodriquez, Brian K. Rowlands, Zachary Silver

The Year in Review

No abstract provided.

Ftc V. Qualcomm And The Need To Reboot Antitrust Goals, Beatriz Del Chiaro Da Rosa

University of Miami Business Law Review

The antitrust community is facing a demanding question: Is antitrust enforcement ultimately about protecting consumers, competition, or both? This question has sparked debates about the ultimate goals of antitrust law. On one side of the debate, supporters of the consumer welfare standard; and on the other side, supporters of the Neo-Brandeisian standard of enforcement. At this crucial time in the debate of overarching antitrust goals, the Ninth Circuit’s holding in Federal Trade Commission v. Qualcomm Incorporated, one of the most important antitrust cases in the twenty-first century, poses many issues for the consumer welfare standard and antitrust enforcement in the …

Probing For Holes In The 100-Year-Old Baseball Exemption: A New Post-Alston Challenge, Sam C. Ehrlich

University of Cincinnati Law Review

As professional baseball’s unique exemption to antitrust law celebrates its one-hundredth year of existence, it faces a new attack in Nostalgia Partners v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, a claim by a group of minor league owners shut out of MLB’s recent restructuring of its minor league affiliate system. While the baseball exemption has weathered dozens of similar challenges over the past century, the Nostalgia Partners plaintiffs claim that circumstances on the Supreme Court have changed enough that the justices would be willing to overturn or narrow the exemption in their favor. This claim rests with the Court’s …

Antitrust Philosophy And Its Impact On Rural Industry, Logan Gary Johnson

Honors Thesis

The United States is a nation steeped in values, and tradition. One of these values has always been the preservation of competition in the pursuit of liberty. The philosophical backing of America’s founding can be traced back to a handful of European thinkers, most notably John Locke. The connection between Locke, America’s founding, and continued struggles with antitrust enforcement are worthy of exploration. Though likely unintentional, rural communities have been left to deal with the impacts of weak antitrust enforcement in a number of key sectors. Chief of which is Agriculture. Consolidation is the new norm, with each stage of …

Making Rules Vs Ruling, Ramsi Woodcock

Law Faculty Popular Media

In an effort to fight inflation, the Federal Open Market Committee raised interest rates to 20% over the course of 1980 and 1981, triggering a recession that threw more than 4 million Americans, many in well-paying manufacturing jobs, out of work.

As it continues to do today, the committee met in secret and explained its rate decisions in a handful of paragraphs.

None of the millions of Americans thrown out of work—or the many businesses driven to bankruptcy—sued the FOMC. No one argued that the FOMC’s power to disrupt the American economy was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. No …

Antitrust Implications Of The Ncaa's Restrictions On The Use Of Name, Image, And Likeness Of Student-Athletes, Jesse Addo

University of St. Thomas Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Atomistic Antitrust, Robin C. Feldman, Mark A. Lemley

William & Mary Law Review

Antitrust is atomistic: deliberately focused on trees, not forests. It pays attention to the consequences of individual acts alleged to be anticompetitive.

That focus is misplaced. Companies and markets don't focus on one particular act to the exclusion of all else. Business strategy emphasizes holistic, integrated planning. And market outcomes aren't determined by a single act, but by the result of multiple acts by multiple parties in the overall context of the structure and characteristics of the market.

The atomistic nature of modern antitrust law causes it to miss two important classes of potential competitive harms. First, the focus on …

France's Organisme De Défense Et De Gestion: A Model For Farmer Collective Action Through Standard Development And Brand Management, Christopher J. Bardenhagen, Philip H. Howard, Marie-Odile Noziéres-Petit

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Quality-based food production, often with a regional dimension, can provide farmers with new, value added markets. It can also provide consumers with access to place based high-quality products, and may benefit local economies through increased commerce. French Organismes de Défense et de Gestion (ODGs) illustrate a mode of quality-based agri-food business organization. ODGs focus on the development of production standards, as well as management of the intellectual property related to those standards. This mode, which is commonly used in Europe, has not often been used in the United States, despite its potential for regional food system development. The ODG mode …

Student-Athletes' Push For Compensation: Analyzing The Impact Of Alston V.National Collegiate Athletic Association (Alston Ii), 958 F.3d 1239 (9th Cir. 2020), Matthew Nowak

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Digital Cluster Markets, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

This paper considers the role of “cluster” markets in antitrust litigation, the minimum requirements for recognizing such markets, and the relevance of network effects in identifying them.

One foundational requirement of markets in antitrust cases is that they consist of products that are very close substitutes for one another. Even though markets are nearly always porous, this principle is very robust in antitrust analysis and there are few deviations.

Nevertheless, clustering noncompeting products into a single market for purposes of antitrust analysis can be valuable, provided that its limitations are understood. Clustering contributes to market power when (1) many customers …