Business Commons^™

Major League Baseball's Antitrust Exemption And The Impact Of The Curt Flood Act, Gina Scalzo

Senior Honors Theses

For many years, professional baseball has enjoyed a privileged antitrust exemption apart from other professional sports. With the passing of the Curt Flood Act in 1998 this exemption was removed; however, the act may not be as influential as it seems. Court rulings were prominent in initiating and maintaining the antitrust exemption for professional baseball. These include the Supreme Court Trilogy, especially the case of Curt Flood, a baseball player who fought against the reserve clause system which limited his and other players’ employment options. Collective bargaining as well as arbitration became dominant in professional baseball labor relations under the …

Harm To Competition Under The 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

In August, 2010, the Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission issued new Guidelines for assessing the competitive effects of horizontal mergers under the antitrust laws. These Guidelines were long awaited not merely because of the lengthy interval between them and previous Guidelines but also because enforcement policy had drifted far from the standards articulated in the previous Guidelines. The 2010 Guidelines are distinctive mainly for two things. One is briefer and less detailed treatment of market delineation. The other is an expanded set of theories of harm that justify preventing mergers or reversing mergers that have already occurred.

The …