Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

The Wood Pulp Case: The Application Of European Economic Community Competition Law To Foreign Based Undertakings, Evan Breibart

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Harmonisation Of Trade Laws In The African Economic Community, Muna Ndulo

Muna B Ndulo

No abstract provided.

Insource The Shareholding Of Outsourced Employees: A Global Stock Ownership Plan, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

With the American economy stalled and another federal election campaign season well underway, the “outsourcing” of American jobs is again on the public agenda. Latest figures indicate not only that claims for joblessness benefits are up, but also that the rate of American job-exportation has more than doubled since the last electoral cycle. This year’s political candidates have been quick to take note. In consequence, more than at any time since the early 1990s, continued American participation in the World Trade Organization, in the North American Free Trade Agreement, and in the processes of global economic integration more generally appear …

Single Firm Conduct, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

My assignment is to discuss likely future developments involving single firm conduct. I will first discuss general trends and then move on to discuss some specific areas of the law. At the outset, however, I should remind the reader that what follows are predictions, not endorsements.

Innovations In Antitrust Enforcement, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

Each antitrust administration, both at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, has its theme—one or a few areas of antitrust enforcement that it wants to pay particular attention to and in that way be identified with. And, as part of this emphasis, administrations often seek to innovate in some way or another, to do something different, or in a different way than previous administrations. One factor stimulating innovation in antitrust enforcement is simply that new people with new ideas come into a new job. Sometimes those new people bring with them ideas that they had been developing …

Vertical Restraints After Monsanto, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

The decision in Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite Service Corp. represents the Supreme Court's latest effort to articulate the standards governing vertical restraints of trade under the United States anti-trust law. It is unlikely that this will be the last time the Court addresses this topic. Notwithstanding the many Supreme Court decisions in this area, several issues remain unresolved. Indeed, Monsanto may have created (or resurrected) as many new questions as it answered, a phenomenon characteristic of most prior opinions in this area. At least part of the reason for this unsettled state is that, from the outset, the Supreme Court …

Oligopoly, Shared Monopoly, And Antitrust Law, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

No abstract provided.

Horizontal Agreements: Concept And Proof, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

It is well established that, absent some very special circumstances, agreements on price or certain other terms of trade by otherwise competing entities (i.e., "horizontal agreements") are unlawful per se under the Sherman Act. In practical effect, once the fact of the horizontal agreement has been established, an adverse impact on competition is presumed, and therefore that the plaintiff is spared the burden of proving such an impact. The principal task for plaintiffs in such cases, therefore, is establishing the existence of an agreement.

In the ideal world (from plaintiffs' perspective), there would be "hard" evidence of a "formal" agreement. …

The Quiet Revolution In U.S. Antitrust Law, George Hay

George A. Hay

In this paper, I report on a series of recent decisions in antitrust cases by the U.S. Supreme Court. While each decision, read separately, may be only of moderate interest (even to a U.S. audience), the slate of decisions, looked at in its entirety, conveys a significant message, and one that may have meaning for scholars and practitioners in Australia and other jurisdictions outside the U.S. I would suggest that a quiet revolution is occurring in which the arguments economists have been making for nearly fifty years have suddenly been embraced by both the left and the right on the …

An Empirical Survey Of Price Fixing Conspiracies, George A. Hay, Daniel Kelley

George A. Hay

This paper reports on a study of recent Antitrust Division horizontal price fixing cases. The objective of the study was to determine if there has been a specific set of characteristics associated with the product or product markets that have been the subjects of price fixing. If such a pattern exists, it might provide empirical insight into some aspects of oligopoly behavior. From a policy point of view, any pattern that is found could be used in a positive enforcement program designed to investigate the "most likely" areas of price fixing. Section I reviews the academic literature which has dealt …

The "Duty To Deal" Under Section 46: Panacea Or Pandora's Box?, George A. Hay, Kathryn Mcmahon

George A. Hay

The privatisation and restructuring of public monopolies and the deregulation of other essential services in Australia and other countries have focused attention on the need for rules which can foster competition and efficiency in the resulting markets. Australia, of course, already has the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) (the "Act"), and the question that has been raised is whether the Act is adequate to deal with the kind of competitive problems that are likely to arise in such markets. Of particular concern is the situation in which a firm controls the supply of an input that is critical in the …

Market Power In Antitrust, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

The concept of market power is at the core of antitrust. Philosophically, antitrust policy is aimed primarily at preventing firms from achieving, retaining, or abusing market power. Operationally, assessing whether a firm or firms have market power or any reasonable prospect for achieving it is often the first (and sometimes, the only) step in performing an antitrust analysis. Few would dispute that market power should play a prominent role in antitrust analysis. Nevertheless, important questions remain. Some of these questions quite naturally focus on the precise degree of importance given to market power. Is it an essential ingredient in antitrust …

A Tale Of Two Cities: From Davids Holdings To Metcash, George A. Hay, E. Jane Murdoch

George A. Hay

In 1994, the Full Federal Court upheld the decision of the trial judge to prevent the acquisition of QIW by Davids, on the grounds that, Davids would become the only supplier of groceries to independent retailers in the geographic market. While the independent retailers faced significant competition in the downstream (retail) business from the integrated retail chains, the Court found that such competition would not be sufficient to prevent the exercise of monopoly power in the upstream (wholesale) business. In 2011, the Full Federal Court upheld the decision of the trial judge not to prevent the acquisition by Metcash of …

Import Controls On Foreign Oil: Reply, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

The position of Ryan Amacher, Robert Tollison, and Thomas Willett (ATW) can be summarized as follows: Assuming that the domestic industry behaves like a profit-maximizing monopoly, if the quota on imported crude oil is replaced by a tariff that is by assumption set so as to achieve the same domestic price of crude oil, the market power of the dominant domestic firms is "severely constrained." In response I would contend that 1) their assumption about the level of the tariff differs from what I had assumed; 2) their conclusion about the market power of the dominant firms is subject to …

Predatory Pricing, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

No abstract provided.

The Meaning Of "Agreement" Under The Sherman Act: Thoughts From The "Facilitating Practices" Experience, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

While the Economic Policy Office was involved in a number of interesting and important matters during the six years I was Director (1973–1979), for the most part my involvement in individual investigations and cases was vicarious, i.e., supervising, supporting, and advising the staff economists assigned to the particular matter. The one major exception – a matter in which I became personally involved in an intensive way – was the General Electric (GE)-Westinghouse price signaling matter. In what follows, I provide a brief summary of what transpired in the GE-Westinghouse matter and then trace through some of the longer term consequences …

Pigeonholes In Antitrust, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

No abstract provided.

The Economics Of Predatory Pricing, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

The revival of interest among economists in predatory pricing, spawned by Areeda and Turner's 1975 article, and the tidal wave of literature which has followed, creates a serious problem for the lawyer interested in keeping up with what economists are saying on the subject. Articles appearing in the standard economics journals are often inaccessible, due to the advanced level of mathematics normally employed, and seem of little apparent relevance, due to the detailed but often artificially sounding assumptions used to generate conclusions. The materials appearing in law reviews, while perhaps less technical, is voluminous and not always original, Worst of …

Predatory Pricing: Competing Economic Theories And The Evolution Of Legal Standards, Joseph F. Brodley, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

Recent years have witnessed a virtual explosion in the legal and economic literature dealing with predatory pricing. Equally dramatic has been the swift adoption by several courts of policy conclusions derived from this literature—a development that is startling, given the complexity and volume of the literature and the lack of consensus among legal and economic scholars. The result has been to raise an acute problem for lawyers and judges who must assess the validity and applicability of competing economic models, mold stubborn and unruly facts to fit abstract economic theories, translate economic theories into legal doctrines, and resolve puzzling cost …

Observations: Sylvania In Retrospect, George A. Hay

George A. Hay

No abstract provided.