Law Commons^™

Antitrust Changeup: How A Single Antitrust Reform Could Be A Home Run For Minor League Baseball Players, Jeremy Ulm

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In 1890, Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act to protect competition in the marketplace. Federal antitrust law has developed to prevent businesses from exerting unfair power on their employees and customers. Specifically, the Sherman Act prevents competitors from reaching unreasonable agreements amongst themselves and from monopolizing markets. However, not all industries have these protections.

Historically, federal antitrust law has not governed the “Business of Baseball.” The Supreme Court had the opportunity to apply antitrust law to baseball in Federal Baseball Club, Incorporated v. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs; however, the Court held that the Business of Baseball was not …

All Bets Are Off: Preempting Major League Baseball’S Monopoly On Sports Betting Data, Beatrice Lucas

Washington Law Review

Major League Baseball is in the process of collectivizing data used in sports betting. This could be exempt from antitrust scrutiny if the conduct falls within the “business of baseball.” Such an exemption raises the question of whether collecting official league data is sufficiently attenuated from the “business of baseball” to be subject to antitrust law, and if so, whether MLB violates the Sherman Act by excluding competitors from the league data market. This Comment makes a two-fold argument. First, it argues that the “business of baseball” should be constrained to cover activities directly linked to putting on baseball games. …

On-Demand Drivers And The Right To Collective Bargaining: Why Seattle's Ordinance Does Not Violate Federal Antitrust Laws, Jacob Aleknavicius

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ride-Hailing Drivers As Autonomous Independent Contractors: Let Them Bargain!, Ronald C. Brown

Washington International Law Journal

“Autonomous” workers include most gig-platform drivers, like those working globally for Uber and Lyft, who are usually classified as independent contractors and are ineligible for labor protections and benefits. The “new economy” and its business model, with its fissurization and increased use of contingent and outsourced workers hired as independent contractors, provide employers flexibility and lower costs by shifting labor costs to the workers. Many of these workers operate more as employees rather than genuine independent contractors or self-employed entrepreneurs, causing lost employee labor benefits and costing the government billions of lost tax dollars. Legal attempts continue to classify these …

The Economics And Antitrust Of Bundling, Rajeev R. Bhattacharya

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This article explains the economics and antitrust of bundling. I first show that popular arguments such as demand complementarities, economies of scope, and price discrimination are not sufficient. I then detail potentially anticompetitive factors such as leverage and opacity. I then use simple examples to show how variation in consumer valuations explains bundling and is not anticompetitive. Finally, I explore other business judgment rule explanations for bundling.

Redeeming The Supreme Court: The Structure Behind The Baseball Trilogy And The Scope Of The Baseball Antitrust Exemption, Christian L. Neufeldt

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

This article conducts a systematic, methodological, and historical analysis of the baseball trilogy to elucidate its underlying structure. It adds to the existing scholarship by analyzing the later decisions in the context of their predecessors and exposing the interplay within the baseball trilogy. As a result, this article argues, against nearly universal opposition, that the Supreme Court issued well-considered opinions in each case and created a logical structure that underlies the entire trilogy. This article then scrutinizes the different approaches taken by the lower courts to delimitate the baseball antitrust exemption. It uses its structural findings on the baseball trilogy …

Is Baseball Shrouded In Collusion Once More? Assessing The Likelihood That The Current State Of The Free Agent Market Will Lead To Antitrust Liability For Major League Baseball's Owners, Connor Mulry

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

This Note examines how Major League Baseball’s (MLB) current free agent system is restraining trade despite the existence of the league’s non-statutory labor exemption from antitrust. The league’s players have seen their percentage share of earnings decrease even as league revenues have reached an all-time high. This reality is due to the players’ inability to “cash-in” when their market value hits its apex. Once these players enter the open market, their value has greatly deteriorated and consequently, they are unable to generate earnings commensurate with their value to the league.

This Note first explores the progression of MLB’s exemption from …

The New Madison Approach To Antitrust Law And Intellectual Property Law, Anita Alanko

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The New Madison Approach has recently been introduced by the Department of Justice Antitrust Division in an effort to address a weakening of patent rights in recent years. The approach has four premises: patent hold-up is not an antitrust problem, standard setting organizations should better protect against patent hold-out to ensure maximum incentives to innovate, patent holder injunction rights should be protected and not limited, and a unilateral and unconditional refusal to license a valid patent should be per se legal. After providing an introduction to the relevant law and terms of art, support and criticism of the New Madison …

Franchise Participants As Proper Patent Opponents: Walker Process Claims, Robert W. Emerson

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Franchise parties may be sued for patent infringement, or they may seek to sue others for an antitrust injury as the result of a fraudulently obtained patent. Indeed, franchisors and franchisees may simultaneously fall under both categories-sued for infringement but aggrieved because the very basis of that suit is illegitimate in their eyes. These franchise parties may turn for relief to a patent-validity challenge authorized in the seminal case Walker Process Equipment, Inc. v. Food Machine & Chemical Corp. Franchise participants-franchisees and franchisors alike-may be the ideal Walker Process claimants. When these types of cases occur, the damages within the …

The Enduring Promise Of Antitrust, Philip J. Weiser

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Movements, Moments, And The Eroding Antitrust Consensus, Michael Wolfe

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Timothy Wu, The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age (Columbia Global Reports, 2018). $14.99.

Timothy Wu’s book, The Curse of Bigness, offers a brief history on and critical perspective of antitrust law’s development over the last century, calling for a return to a Brandeisian approach to the law. In this review-essay, I use Wu’s text as a starting point to explore antitrust law’s current political moment. Tracing the dynamics at play in this debate and Wu’s role in it, I note areas underexplored in Wu’s text regarding the interplay of antitrust law with other forms of …