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Full-Text Articles in Law
Plus Factors And Agreement In Antitrust Law, William E. Kovacic, Robert C. Marshall, Leslie M. Marx, Halbert L. White
Plus Factors And Agreement In Antitrust Law, William E. Kovacic, Robert C. Marshall, Leslie M. Marx, Halbert L. White
Michigan Law Review
Plus factors are economic actions and outcomes, above and beyond parallel conduct by oligopolistic firms, that are largely inconsistent with unilateral conduct but largely consistent with explicitly coordinated action. Possible plus factors are typically enumerated without any attempt to distinguish them in terms of a meaningful economic categorization or in terms of their probative strength for inferring collusion. In this Article, we provide a taxonomy for plus factors as well as a methodology for ranking plus factors in terms of their strength for inferring explicit collusion, the strongest of which are referred to as "super plus factors."
Rethinking Merger Efficiencies, Daniel A. Crane
Rethinking Merger Efficiencies, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
The two leading merger systems-those of the United States and the European Union-treat the potential benefits and risks of mergers asymmetrically. Both systems require considerably greater proof of efficiencies than they do of potential harms if the efficiencies are to offset concerns over the accumulation or exercise of market power The implicit asymmetry principle has important systemic effects for merger control. It not only stands in the way of some socially desirable mergers but also may indirectly facilitate the clearance of some socially undesirable mergers. Neither system explicitly justifies this asymmetry, and none of the plausible justifications are normatively supportable. …
Unfit For Prime Time: Why Cable Television Regulations Cannot Perform Trinko's 'Antitrust Function', Keith Klovers
Unfit For Prime Time: Why Cable Television Regulations Cannot Perform Trinko's 'Antitrust Function', Keith Klovers
Michigan Law Review
Until recently, regulation and antitrust law operated in tandem to safeguard competition in regulated industries. In three recent decisions-Trinko, Credit Suisse, and Linkline-the Supreme Court limited the operation of the antitrust laws when regulation "performs the antitrust function." This Note argues that cable programming regulations-which are in some respects factually similar to the telecommunications regulations at issue in Trinko and Linkline-do not perform the antitrust function because they cannot deter anticompetitive conduct. As a result, Trinko and its siblings should not foreclose antitrust claims for damages that arise out of certain cable programming disputes.
Search Neutrality As An Antitrust Principle, Daniel A. Crane
Search Neutrality As An Antitrust Principle, Daniel A. Crane
Law & Economics Working Papers
Google's perceived dominance in Internet search, and the perception that Google exploits this dominance to favor its own websites and service, has led to call for a mandatory legal requirement of "search neutrality." This essay argues that a general principle of search neutrality ignores the realities of Internet search and would stymie search innovation.
Shutting The Black Door: Using American Needle To Cure The Problem Of Improper Product Definition, Daniel A. Schwartz
Shutting The Black Door: Using American Needle To Cure The Problem Of Improper Product Definition, Daniel A. Schwartz
Michigan Law Review
Section 1 of the Sherman Act is designed to protect competition by making illegal any agreement that has the effect of limiting consumer choice. To make this determination, courts first define the product at issue and then consider the challenged restraint's impact on the market in which that product competes. When considering § 1 allegations against sports leagues, courts have tended to define products according to the structure of the leagues. The result of this tendency is that harm to competition between the leagues' teams is not properly accounted for in the courts' analyses. This, in turn, grants leagues a …
Innovative Copyright, Greg Lastowka
Innovative Copyright, Greg Lastowka
Michigan Law Review
For over a decade, Michael Carrier has been exploring the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property ("IP") law, contributing many articles that offer new solutions and approaches to the vexing problems confronting the law of innovation. Carrier's academic writing is situated in a voluminous scholarly discourse about the appropriate rules and goals of the laws of copyright, patent, and antitrust. While Carrier easily could have written an "insider" tome for specialists in this area, his new book, Innovation for the 21st Century, is targeted at a broader audience. Carrier's book is directed at legislators, jurists, and opinion makers-as well as …
Rethinking Merger Efficiencies, Daniel A. Crane
Rethinking Merger Efficiencies, Daniel A. Crane
Law & Economics Working Papers
The two leading merger systems—those of the United States and the European Union—treat the potential benefits and risks of mergers asymmetrically. Both systems require considerably greater proof of efficiencies than they do of potential harms if the efficiencies are to offset concerns over the accumulation or exercise of market power. The implicit asymmetry principle has important systemic effects for merger control. Not only does it stand in the way of some socially desirable mergers, but it may indirectly facilitate the clearance of some socially undesirable mergers. Neither system explicitly justifies this asymmetry and none of the plausible justifications is normatively …
Pharmaceutical Patent Litigation Settlements: Balancing Patent & Antitrust Policy Through Institutional Choice, Timothy A. Cook
Pharmaceutical Patent Litigation Settlements: Balancing Patent & Antitrust Policy Through Institutional Choice, Timothy A. Cook
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
Should a branded pharmaceutical company be allowed to pay a generic competitor to stay out of the market for a drug? Antitrust policy implies that such a deal should be prohibited, but the answer becomes less clear when the transaction is packaged as a patent-litigation settlement. Since Congress passed the Hatch-Waxman Act, which encourages generic manufacturers to challenge pharmaceutical patent validity, settlements of this kind have been on the rise. Congress, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission have condemned these agreements as anticompetitive and costly to American consumers, but none of these bodies has been able to …
The Case For Rebalancing Antitrust And Regulation, Howard A. Shelanski
The Case For Rebalancing Antitrust And Regulation, Howard A. Shelanski
Michigan Law Review
The continued growth of forensic DNA databases has brought about greater interest in a search method known as "familial" or "kinship" matching. Whereas a typical database search seeks the source of a crime-scene stain by making an exact match between a known person and the DNA sample, familial searching instead looks for partial matches in order to find potential relatives of the source. The use of a familial DNA search to identify the alleged "Grim Sleeper" killer in California brought national attention to the method, which has many proponents. In contrast, this Article argues against the practice of familial searching …
Toward A Unified Theory Of Exclusionary Vertical Restraints, Daniel A. Crane, Graciela Miralles
Toward A Unified Theory Of Exclusionary Vertical Restraints, Daniel A. Crane, Graciela Miralles
Articles
The law of exclusionary vertical restraints-contractual or other business relationships between vertically related firms-is deeply confused and inconsistent in both the United States and the European Union. A variety of vertical practices, including predatory pricing, tying, exclusive dealing, price discrimination, and bundling, are treated very differently based on formalistic distinctions that bear no relationship to the practices' exclusionary potential. We propose a comprehensive, unified test for all exclusionary vertical restraints that centers on two factors: foreclosure and substantiality. We then assign economic content to these factors. A restraint forecloses if it denies equally efficient rivals a reasonable opportunity to make …