Law Commons^™

Cartels As Rational Business Strategy: Crime Pays, John M. Connor, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

This article is the first to analyze whether cartel sanctions are optimal. The conventional wisdom is that the current level of sanctions is adequate or excessive. The article demonstrates, however, that the combined level of current United States cartel sanctions is only 9% to 21% as large as it should be to protect potential victims of cartelization optimally. Consequently, the average level of United States anti-cartel sanctions should be approximately quintupled.

The United States imposes a diverse arsenal of sanctions against collusion: criminal fines and restitution payments for the firms involved and prison, house arrest and fines for the corporate …

Revitalizing Section 5 Of The Ftc Act Using “Consumer Choice” Analysis, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper makes two points. First, Section 5 of the FTC Act, properly construed, is indeed significantly broader and more encompassing than the Sherman Act or Clayton Act. Section 5 violations include incipient violations of the other antitrust laws, and also violations of their policy or spirit.

Second, the best - and probably the only - way to interpret Section 5 in an expansive manner is to do so in a way that also is relatively definite, predictable, principled and clearly bounded. This best can be done if Section 5 is articulated using the consumer choice framework. Without the discipline …

The Size Of Cartel Overcharges: Implications For U.S. And Ec Fining Policies, John M. Connor, Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of this article is to examine whether the current cartel fine levels of the European Union (EU) and the United States are at the optimal levels. We collected and analyzed the available information concerning the size of the overcharges caused by hard-core pricing fixing, bid rigging, and market allocation agreements. Data sets of United States cartels were assembled and examined. These cartels overcharged an average of 18% to 37%, depending upon the data set and methodology employed in the analysis and whether mean or median figures are used. Separate data sets for European cartels also were analyzed, which …