Law Commons^™

Tying Law For The Digital Age, Daniel A. Crane

Notre Dame Law Review

Tying arrangements, a central concern of antitrust policy since the early days of the Sherman and Clayton Acts, have come into renewed focus with respect to the practices of dominant technology companies. Unfortunately, tying law’s doctrinal structure is a self-contradictory and incoherent wreck. A conventional view holds that this mess is due to errant Supreme Court precedents, never fully corrected, that expressed hostility to tying based on faulty economic understanding. That is only part of the story. Examination of tying law’s origins and development shows that tying doctrine was built on a now-dated paradigm of what constitutes a tying arrangement. …

Researching Antitrust Law, Keith Lacy

Law Librarian Scholarship

Antitrust is a dynamic area of law subject to rapid change. It is highly sensitive to the attitudes of regulators and market conditions, always looking forward to how decisions made today will affect businesses and the lives of individual consumers. Current events — and passionate consumers, or fans — can incur “Swift” antitrust scrutiny, as Live Nation Entertainment discovered recently.

Yet it is inextricably linked to more abstract considerations. The term “antitrust” is itself archaic, reflecting animosity to a business practice innovated by Standard Oil in 1882. Understanding the history of antitrust actions often requires understanding something of history broadly …

Antitrust For Dominant Digital Platforms: An Alternative To The Monopoly Power Standard To Restore Competition, Jordan Ramsey

Senior Honors Theses

Antitrust law is meant to promote competition by prohibiting anticompetitive business practices such as mergers and acquisitions as well as exclusionary conduct. Judicial interpretation of antitrust law has allowed dominant digital platforms to undertake anticompetitive actions without prosecution. The Sherman Antitrust Act should be amended to remove the monopoly power standard that allows firms to engage in anticompetitive conduct as long as the conduct does not create or uphold monopoly power. The amendment would make anticompetitive conduct illegal regardless of monopoly power, as long as six proof requirements are met. This would result in lessened market concentration, which would benefit …

On Firms, Sanjukta Paul

Law & Economics Working Papers

This paper is about firms as an instance of economic coordination, and about how we think about them in relation to other forms of coordination as well as in relation to competition and markets. The dominant frame for thinking about firms--which has strongly influenced contemporary competition law as well as serving as a vital adjunct to the fundamental concepts of neoclassical price theory that guide many areas of law and policy--implicitly or explicitly explains and justifies the centralization of both decision-making rights and flows of income from economic activity on productive efficiency grounds. We have very good reasons to doubt …

Contested Places, Utility Pole Spaces: A Competition And Safety Framework For Analyzing Utility Pole Association Rules, Roles, And Risks, Catherine J.K. Sandoval

Catholic University Law Review

As climate change augurs longer wildfire seasons, safe, reliable, and competitive energy and communications markets depend on sound infrastructure and well-calibrated regulation. The humble wooden utility pole, first deployed in America in 1844 to extend telegraph service, forms the twenty-first century’s technological scaffold. Utility poles are increasingly contested places where competition, safety, and reliability meet. Yet, regulators and academics have largely overlooked the risks posed by century-old private utility pole associations in California, composed of private and public utility pole owners and some entities who attach facilities to utility poles. No academic articles have examined the rules, roles, and risks …

Do Legal Origins Predict Legal Substance?, Anu Bradford, Yun-Chien Chang, Adam S. Chilton, Nuno Garoupa

Faculty Scholarship

There is a large body of research in economics and law suggesting that the legal origin of a country – that is, whether its legal regime is based on English common law or French, German, or Nordic civil law – profoundly impacts a range of outcomes. However, the exact relationship between legal origin and legal substance has been disputed in the literature and not fully explored with nuanced legal coding. We revisit this debate while leveraging novel cross-country data sets that provide detailed coding of two areas of laws: property and antitrust. We find that having shared legal origins strongly …

Uber Case, Competition Law Implications In Europe And Latin America: Defenders Of The Old Economy Versus Advocates Of The Digital Revolution, Lavinia Meliti

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Submission Of Robert H. Lande To House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Investigation Of Digital Platforms, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

The House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee asked me to submit suggestions concerning the adequacy of existing antitrust laws, enforcement policies, and enforcement levels insofar as they impact the state of competition in the digital marketplace. My submission recommends the following nine reforms:

1. A textualist analysis of the Sherman Act shows that Section 2 actually is a no-fault monopolization statute. At a minimum Congress should enact a strong presumption that every firm with a 67% market share has violated Section 2. This would move the Sherman Act an important step in the right direction, the direction Congress intended in 1890. My …

The Omega Man Or The Isolation Of U.S. Antitrust Law, Spencer Weber Waller

Faculty Publications & Other Works

There is a classic science fiction novel and film that present a metaphor for the isolation of United States antitrust law in the current global context. Richard Mathiesson's 1954 classic science fiction novel, I am Legend, and the later 1971 film released under the name of The Omega Man starring Charleton Heston, both deal with the fate of Robert Neville, a survivor of a world-wide pandemic who believes he is the last man on Earth.

While I am Legend and The Omega Man are obviously works of fantasy, it nonetheless has resonance for contemporary antitrust debate and discourse. United States …

Framing The Chicago School Of Antitrust Analysis, Herbert J. Hovenkamp, Fiona Scott Morton

All Faculty Scholarship

The Chicago School of antitrust has benefited from a great deal of law office history, written by admiring advocates rather than more dispassionate observers. This essay attempts a more neutral stance, looking at the ideology, political impulses, and economics that produced the Chicago School of antitrust policy and that account for its durability.

The origins of the Chicago School lie in a strong commitment to libertarianism and nonintervention. Economic models of perfect competition best suited these goals. The early strength of the Chicago School of antitrust was that it provided simple, convincing answers to everything that was wrong with antitrust …

Troubled Waters Between U.S. And European Antitrust, D. Daniel Sokol

D. Daniel Sokol

Antitrust is an important area of law and policy for most companies in the world. Having divergent rules across antitrust systems means that the same economic behavior may be treated differently depending on the jurisdiction, leading to disparate outcomes in which one jurisdiction finds illegal behavior (but the other does not) when the underlying behavior may be pro-competitive. This disparate set of outcomes creates a world in which the most stringent antitrust system may produce the global standard. As a result, if the antitrust rules applied are too rigid, they threaten to hurt consumers not merely in the jurisdiction where …

Trade Associations, Information Exchange, And Cartels, Spencer Weber Waller

Spencer Weber Waller

Trade associations can play a procompetitive role in an economy but, as an association of actual and potential competitors, can also raise important competition law issues that must be addressed carefully by legal counsel. This Issue Paper presents a hypothetical problem that illustrates many of the issues that counsel can confront in representing a trade association, its members, or company executives. The Issue Paper raises many of the issues from a United States' perspective with occasional comparative examples from other jurisdictions. Carefully consider how your jurisdiction would, and should, address these all too real issues. In thinking about the …

Taking Antitrust Away From The Courts, Ganesh Sitaraman

Ganesh Sitaraman

A small number of firms hold significant market power in a wide variety of sectors of the economy, leading commentators across the political spectrum to call for a reinvigoration of antitrust enforcement. But the antitrust agencies have been surprisingly timid in response to this challenge, and when they have tried to assert themselves, they have often found that hostile courts block their ability to foster competitive markets. In other areas of law, Congress delegates power to agencies, agencies make regulations setting standards, and courts provide deferential review after the fact. Antitrust doesn’t work this way. Courts – made up of …

Procedural Fairness In Antitrust Enforcement: The U.S. Perspective, Christopher S. Yoo, Hendrik M. Wendland

All Faculty Scholarship

Due process and fairness in enforcement procedures represent a critical aspect of the rule of law. Allowing greater participation by the parties and making enforcement procedures more transparent serve several functions, including better decisionmaking, greater respect for government, stronger economic growth, promotion of investment, limits corruption and politically motivated actions, regulation of bureaucratic ambition, and greater control of agency staff whose vision do not align with agency leadership or who are using an enforcement matter to advance their careers. That is why such distinguished actors as the International Competition Network (ICN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the …

Antitrust And Democracy, Spencer Weber Waller

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Our solution of the anti-monopoly problems must be in terms of our ideals-- the ideals of political and economic democracy. We want no economic or political dictatorship imposed upon us either by the government or by big business. We want no system of detailed regulation of prices by the government nor price fixing by private interests. We do not want bureaucracy or regimentation of any kind, but we will prefer governmental to private bureaucracy and regimentation, if we have to make such a choice. We cannot permit private corporations to be private governments. We must keep our economic system under …

Taking Antitrust Away From The Courts, Ganesh Sitaraman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A small number of firms hold significant market power in a wide variety of sectors of the economy, leading commentators across the political spectrum to call for a reinvigoration of antitrust enforcement. But the antitrust agencies have been surprisingly timid in response to this challenge, and when they have tried to assert themselves, they have often found that hostile courts block their ability to foster competitive markets. In other areas of law, Congress delegates power to agencies, agencies make regulations setting standards, and courts provide deferential review after the fact. Antitrust doesn’t work this way. Courts – made up of …

Trade Associations, Information Exchange, And Cartels, Spencer Weber Waller

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Trade associations can play a procompetitive role in an economy but, as an association of actual and potential competitors, can also raise important competition law issues that must be addressed carefully by legal counsel. This Issue Paper presents a hypothetical problem that illustrates many of the issues that counsel can confront in representing a trade association, its members, or company executives. The Issue Paper raises many of the issues from a United States' perspective with occasional comparative examples from other jurisdictions. Carefully consider how your jurisdiction would, and should, address these all too real issues. In thinking about the …

Troubled Waters Between U.S. And European Antitrust, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Antitrust is an important area of law and policy for most companies in the world. Having divergent rules across antitrust systems means that the same economic behavior may be treated differently depending on the jurisdiction, leading to disparate outcomes in which one jurisdiction finds illegal behavior (but the other does not) when the underlying behavior may be pro-competitive. This disparate set of outcomes creates a world in which the most stringent antitrust system may produce the global standard. As a result, if the antitrust rules applied are too rigid, they threaten to hurt consumers not merely in the jurisdiction where …

The Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law: New Developments And Empirical Evidence, Michael Faure, Xinzhu Zhang, Susan Farmer

Susan Beth Farmer

Beth Farmer contributed the following chapter: "Competition Policy in China: Trends in Private Civil Litigation"

Effective enforcement of competition laws and regulations benefits society, consumers and market participants, and promotes a competition culture. Private civil actions can contribute to healthy economic development (AML Article 1), consumer welfare, and economic efficiency and more complete and effective enforcement of competition law. This chapter discusses developments in private civil actions under the Chinese AML in the context of recent Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court, national development goals, and the experience of four years of active civil litigation. A spokesperson of the Intellectual …

The Impact Of China's Antitrust Law And Other Competition Policies On U.S. Companies, Susan Beth Farmer

Susan Beth Farmer

This article is based on the author's testimony for part of the hearings on “The Impact of China’s Antitrust Law and Other Competition Policies On U.S. Companies,” held by the House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy on July 13, 2010. It describes developments in the enforcement and application of the Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law, interpretation and enforcement during the two years since the AML came into effect, with particular attention to merger review. It comments on the organization and staffing of the enforcement agencies and the publication of numerous procedures, guidelines and regulations, which suggests that …

Telecommunications: Competition Policy In The Telecommunications Space, Gene Kimmelman, Maureen K. Ohlhausen, Michael O’Rielly, Christopher S. Yoo, Stephen F. Williams

All Faculty Scholarship

In today’s rapidly evolving telecommunications landscape, the development of new technologies and distribution platforms are driving innovation and growth at a breakneck speed across the Internet ecosystem. Broadband connectivity is increasingly important to our civil discourse, our economy, and our future. What is the proper role of government in facilitating robust investment and competition in this critical sector? When technology companies constantly have to reinvent themselves and adapt to survive – what role should government play? This panel of experts at the Federalist Society’s 2014 National Lawyers Convention discussed the current regulatory environment and how government policies – particularly regarding …

Análisis Económico De Las Sanciones Administrativas En El Derecho De La Competencia Y Del Consumo, Camilo Ossa

Camilo Ossa

Encontrará el lector una revisión de un aspecto puntual relacionado con la posibilidad que investigaciones originadas por infracciones al consumidor puedan ser sancionadas vía competencia, con el fin de aprovechar el mayor valor de la sanción, de lo cual se hará una revisión de los aspectos jurídicos que ello implica, además de una propuesta, utilizando herramientas del Análisis Económico del Derecho, que nos puede llevar a convertir una una sanción que se cree “pequeña” en eficiente, siendo óptima para el cumplimiento del fin propuesto en la misma ley. Son dos aspectos puntuales relacionados, primero, con la parte teórica que hay …

An Antitrust Analysis Of Joint Research And Development Agreements In The European Economic Community And The United States, Francene M. Augustyn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Tensions Between Antitrust And Industrial Policy, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Sound antitrust law and policy is in tension with industrial policy. Antitrust promotes consumer welfare whereas industrial policy promotes government intervention for privileged groups or industries. Unfortunately, industrial policy seems to be alive and well both within antitrust law and policy and within a broader competition policy worldwide. This Article identifies how industrial policy impacts both antitrust and competition policy. It provides examples from the United States, Europe and China of how industrial policy has been used in antitrust. However, this Article also makes a broader claim that the overt or subtle use of industrial policy in antitrust and a …

The Second Decentralisation Of Competition Law — A Must For An Orderly Administration Of Justice In The Eu, Emanuela Matei, Valentin Mircea

Emanuela A. Matei

The article relies upon the postulate that the European system of competition enforcement could benefit from a transplantation of a lot vaster American experiences in the field of private litigation.

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.

The Lessons From Libor For Detection And Deterrence Of Cartel Wrongdoing, Rosa M. Abrantes-Metz, D. Daniel Sokol

D. Daniel Sokol

In late June 2012, Barclays entered into a $453 million settlement with UK and U.S. regulators due to its manipulation of Libor between 2005 and 2009. Among the agencies that investigated Barclays is the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (as well as other antitrust authorities and regulatory agencies from around the world). Participation in a price fixing conduct, by its very nature, requires the involvement of more than one firm. We are cautious to draw overly broad conclusions until more facts come out in the public domain. What we note at this time, based on public information, is that the …

Welfare Standards In U.S. And E.U. Antitrust Enforcement, Roger D. Blair, D. Daniel Sokol

D. Daniel Sokol

The potential goals of antitrust are numerous. Goals matter to antitrust. We believe that it is total welfare rather than consumer welfare that should drive antitrust analysis. We use this Article as an opportunity to explore both a comparative analysis of welfare standards across E. U. and US. competition systems and the impact of welfare standards on global antitrust systemwide welfare.

In this Article, we analyze two types of situations in which there would be a different outcome based on the goal implemented. One scenario involves resale price maintenance (RPM). For RPM, we argue that even if there were a …

Trouble Abroad: Microsoft's Antitrust Problems Under The Law Of The European Union, Justin O'Dell

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Proposed Damages Directive: The Real Lessons From The United States, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

Europeans should be doubly cautious when they study the U.S. experience with private antitrust enforcement. Nevertheless, there are ten specific lessons they can learn. None, however, is consistent with the conventional wisdom in the international competition community that U.S.-style private enforcement has been a disaster. Each should help Europe objectively consider the Commission's proposed Directive concerning private enforcement of Competition law.