Law Commons^™

Taking Innovation Seriously: Antitrust Enforcement If Innovation Mattered Most, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Now is a particularly important time to consider the relationship between antitrust and innovation. Within the last two years, both the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have accumulated an entire docket of antitrust investigations related to the Internet and other high-tech industries. The list of publicly disclosed investigations is lengthy, and includes major players like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter.' The nation's antitrust enforcement authorities are taking a look at the state of competition on the Internet, an inquiry that puts into clear focus the need for antitrust to take seriously its relationship with innovation policy.

That is the …

The Brussels Effect, Anu Bradford

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the unprecedented and deeply underestimated global power that the EU is exercising through its legal institutions and standards, and how it successfully exports that influence to the rest of the world. Without the need to use international institutions or seek other nations' cooperation, the EU has a strong and growing ability to promulgate regulations that become entrenched in the legal frameworks of developed and developing markets alike, leading to a notable "Europeanization" of many important aspects of global commerce. The Article identifies the precise conditions for and the specific mechanism through which this externalization of EU's standards …

I Now Recognize You (And Only You) As Equal: An Anatomy Of (Mutual) Recognition Agreements In The Gats, Juan A. Marchetti, Petros C. Mavroidis

Faculty Scholarship

There is a plethora of writings regarding mutual recognition, which has long been recognized as a useful, and potentially powerful, means to tackle regulatory barriers impeding trade in services. Paradoxically, very little attention has been paid to empirical issues regarding recognition, such as the extent of unilateral or mutual recognition around the world. Observers, from both academic and policy quarters, have therefore been left with the impression that either recognition agreements were kept relatively secret, so that their benefits would not have to be extended to third parties, or they were not really so widespread as their merits would warrant, …

Parallel Exclusion, C. Scott Hemphill, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars and courts have long debated whether and when "parallel pricing" – adoption of the same price by every firm in a market – should be considered a violation of antitrust law. But there has been a comparative neglect of the importance of "parallel exclusion" – conduct, engaged in by multiple firms, that blocks or slows would-be market entrants. Parallel exclusion merits greater attention, for it can be far more harmful than parallel price elevation. Setting a high price leaves the field open for new entrants and may even attract them. In contrast, parallel action that excludes new entrants both …