Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Guideline Institutionalization: The Role Of Merger Guidelines In Antitrust Discourse, Hillary Greene

William & Mary Law Review

With the growth of the administrative state, agency-promulgated enforcement policy statements, typically referred to as guidelines, have become ubiquitous in the U.S. federal system. Yet, the actual usage and impact of such guidelines is poorly understood. Often the issuing agencies declare the guidelines to be nonbinding, even for themselves. Notwithstanding this disclaimer, the government, private parties, and even the courts frequently rely on the guidelines in a precedent-like manner. In this Article, Professor Greene examines the evolution of one system of enforcement policy guidelines-the U.S. federal antitrust merger guidelines--and finds that these guidelines have acted as a stealth force on …

The Elephant In The Courtroom: Litigating The Premerger Fix In Arch Coal And Beyond, Katherine A. Ambrogi

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Antitrust & Hospital Mergers: Does The Nonprofit Form Affect Competitive Substance?, Thomas L. Greaney

All Faculty Scholarship

Following a string of government losses in cases challenging hospital mergers in federal court, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice issued their report on competition in health care seeking to set the record straight on a number of issues that underlie the judiciary's resolution of these cases. One such issue is the import of nonprofit status for applying antitrust law. This essay describes antitrust's role in addressing the consolidation in the hospital sector and the subtle influence that the social function of the nonprofit hospital has had in merger litigation. Noting that the political and social context …

Exclusive Dealing, The Theory Of The Firm, And Raising Rivals' Costs: Toward A New Synthesis, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

New E.C. Merger Control Test Under Article 2 Of The Merger Control Regulation, The Symposium On European Competition Law , Alexander Riesenkampff

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

On November 25, 2003, the Council reached a political accord on amending the Merger Control Regulation. On January 20, 2003, the Council formally adopted the amendment as new Regulation No.139/2004. Article 2, Sec. 3 of the new regulation provides: "A concentration which would significantly impede effective competition, in the common market or in a substantial part of it, in particular as a result of the creation or strengthening of a dominant position, shall be declared incompatible with the common market." This article begins by outlining the legislative history of the new Article 2. That preface is followed by the identification …

E.U. Competition And Private Actions For Damages, The Symposium On European Competition Law , Georg Berrisch, Eve Jordan, Rocio Salvador Roldan

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

There are numerous reasons why private enforcement of E.U. competition law remains underdeveloped in Europe. The main reason is perhaps that it is not regulated by E.U. law but by Member State law. This in itself creates legal uncertainty. A system that creates optimal conditions for individuals to challenge infringements of competition rules before national courts ensures a high level of compliance. It is therefore no surprise that the European Commission ("Commission") is keen to see the general use of private enforcement, and in particular of actions for damages, in Europe increase. This paper focuses on one particular aspect of …

Mission, Margin, And Trust In The Nonprofit Health Care Enterprise, Thomas L. Greaney, Kathleen Boozang

All Faculty Scholarship

The law governing charitable corporations remains neglected and thoroughly muddled. Still unsettled are central issues regarding the accountability of directors and management, legal standards governing organic changes by nonprofit institutions, and mechanisms to ensure fidelity to the organization's charitable mission. For nonprofit corporations in the health care sector, which represent a large proportion of all health services supplied nationwide, particularly charity care, these shortcomings have had serious repercussions. The central issue addressed in this Article is how fidelity to the mission of the charitable health care corporation should be monitored. It advances the normative perspective that the law should maximize …

The Report Of The Attorney General's National Committee To Study The Antitrust Laws: A Retrospective, Thomas E. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

In 1955, the third year of the Eisenhower administration, the Michigan Law Review published what I believe to be the only symposium on antitrust law ever to appear in its pages. The occasion was the release in March of that year of a Report of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study the Antitrust Laws,2 a nearly fourhundred- page examination of virtually all facets of federal antitrust doctrine and enforcement. The pages of the symposium led me of course to revisit the Report itself, a visit a little like seeing an old high school friend long forgotten some forty years …

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Antitrust And Trade Regulation Law, Michael F. Urbanski, James R. Creekmore, Beth G. Hungate-Noland

University of Richmond Law Review

This year witnessed the advance of a wide variety of antitrust and trade regulation theories, most of which met with little success. Of the antitrust cases, Continental Airlines waged a successful battle to eliminate carry-on baggage restrictions at Dulles Airport. Additionally, Maryland's price-setting scheme for liquor was not accorded state action immunity. On the other side of the ledger, another antitrust litigant failed to overcome the requirement that efforts to petition the government must be objectively baseless in order to meet the sham exception to the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. Difficulties in proving an antitrust injury and the intent element of a …

The Anticompetitive Effect Of Passive Investment, David Gilo

Michigan Law Review

There are many cases in which a firm passively invests in its competitor. For example, Microsoft passively invested in $150 million worth of the nonvoting stock of Apple, its historic rival in the operating systems market. Also, in November 1998, Northwest Airlines, the nation's fourth-largest airline, purchased 14% of the common stock of Continental Airlines Inc., the nation's fifth-largest (and fastest growing) airline. Northwest competes with Continental on seven routes, serving 3.6 million passengers per year. In another example, TCI, the nation's largest cable operator, became a passive investor with a 9% stake (which can be increased, under the terms …

Antitrust Beyond Competition: Market Failures, Total Welfare, And The Challenge Of Intramarket Second-Best Tradeoffs, Peter J. Hammer

Michigan Law Review

Should antitrust law ever sanction the accumulation of market power or permit other restraints of trade if such conduct would increase social welfare? This is the challenge raised by intramarket second- best tradeoffs. The lesson of second-best analysis is that one market failure can sometimes counteract the effects of another market failure. In the presence of multiple market failures, it is conceivable that mergers or other restraints traditionally viewed as anticompetitive may be welfare-enhancing. A social planner, given the mandate of maximizing total welfare, would permit such restraints. Could an antitrust judge come to the same result under a defensible …

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Antitrust And Trade Regulation Law, Michael F. Urbanski, James R. Creekmore

University of Richmond Law Review

During the past year, this country has devoted much attention, with good reason, to the Microsoft trial and appeal. Not since the breakup of Ma Bell's stronghold on the telecommunications industry in the early 1980s has a single legal battle posed so significant a change for both an industry and its consumers. In fact, given the far-reaching effects of this decision on other related industries and consumers, it likely will be years before its ultimate impact can be assessed.

Antitrust And Market Power, Milton A. Marquis

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The antitrust laws have been described as the "Magna Carta of free enterprise."

The Boeing-Mcdonnell Douglas Merger: Competition Law, Parochialism, And The Need For A Globalized Antitrust System, Kathleen Luz

Faculty Scholarship

On July 1, 1997, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) closed its investigation of the merger of the Boeing Company (Boeing) and the McDonnell Douglas Corporation (McDonnell Douglas), essentially approving the merger. The proposed $14 billion merger was quite significant, as it would unite the first and third largest civil aircraft companies in the world. Although the proposed merger had passed muster under U.S. antitrust laws, Boeing still faced the obstacle of gaining approval from the European Commission (EC), the antitrust enforcement agency of the European Union (EU). The EC initially sought to reject the merger and to levy heavy penalties …

Antitrust: Systemcare, Inc. V. Wang Laboratories Corp.: Evaluating Unilateral Behavior In The Tenth Circuit, Michael R. Barnett

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Night Landings On An Aircraft Carrier: Hospital Mergers And Antitrust Law, Thomas L. Greaney

All Faculty Scholarship

Abstract: Analysis of the competitive effects of hospital mergers requires antitrust tribunals to make exceedingly fine-tuned appraisals of complex economic relationships. The law requires fact finding in a number of complex areas, e.g., defining product and geographic markets, predicting the possibility of that firms will engage in coordinated behavior; and assessing efficiencies flowing from the merger. Further complicating the process is the fact that these decisions require judgments regarding what the future may hold in an industry undergoing revolutionary change. Like pilots landing at night aboard an aircraft carrier, courts are aiming for a target that is small, shifting and …

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Antitrust And Trade Regulation, Michael F. Urbanski, Francis H. Casola

University of Richmond Law Review

Once again this past year, the Fourth Circuit and the federal courts in Virginia proved inhospitable to antitrust plaintiffs. Plaintiffs consistently lost on summary judgment and only one plaintiff survived a motion to dismiss. The only major development in the law in the Fourth Circuit came from the Western District of Virginia where Judge James C. Turk refused to recognize the theory of monopoly leveraging under Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

Fraudulent Concealment, Self-Concealing Conspiracies, And The Clayton Act, Richard F. Schwed

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that courts should apply a self-concealment standard to section 4B of the Clayton Act rather than require a showing of additional affirmative acts. Part I examines the history of the fraudulent concealment doctrine and its application to antitrust cases. It identifies three different standards used by courts to satisfy the concealment element and finds that courts apply the doctrine inconsistently. Part II analyzes the relationship between the fraudulent concealment doctrine and the self-concealment standard in antitrust cases by examining the judicial development of the doctrine and Congress' intent in enacting section 4B. Part II concludes that the …

Horizontal Mergers: Law, Policy, And Economics, George A. Hay, Gregory J. Werden

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The legality of a horizontal merger under section 7 of the Clayton Act turns on a reckoning of its social costs and benefits. This paper reviews what economics has to say about that reckoning and explores the relationship between economic learning and merger law and policy.

Transnational Production Joint Ventures And United States Antitrust Law: Evaluating The Proposed National Cooperative Production Amendments, Timothy K. Armstrong

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The explosion of the United States trade deficit in the last decade or so has produced a bumper crop of self-appointed experts offering various cures for the competitive decline of key domestic industries. Among their less obvious diagnoses is that the United States government strangles domestic businesses through the antitrust laws, which forbid industrial cartels that might be better able to match the competitiveness of the Japanese. For good or ill, the Bush Administration has hewn a path fairly close to this corporatist orthodoxy, and Congress has also appeared willing to loosen the hold of antitrust laws on United States …

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Antitrust And Trade Regulation, Michael F. Urbanski

University of Richmond Law Review

Virginia federal courts have shown a reluctance this past year to summarily dismiss plaintiffs' antitrust claims on Rule 12(b)(6) motions where there is no factual record. However, once a sufficient record has been established, the courts have continued their rigorous scrutiny of antitrust claims. While this year's decisions contain few victories for antitrust plaintiffs on the merits, surprisingly, their holdings are mixed and cannot be categorized as decidedly pro-plaintiff or defendant. This past year, the Fourth Circuit has limited plaintiffs' actions by broadening the sweep of the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine established in Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp. to include …

Antitrust's Protected Classes, Herbert Hovenkamp

Michigan Law Review

For purposes of argument, this essay assumes that efficiency ought to be the exclusive goal of antitrust enforcement. That premise is controversial. Nonetheless, several economic and legal theorists, primarily among the Chicago School of economics and antitrust scholarship, have developed an Optimal Deterrence Model based on this assumption. The Model is designed to achieve the optimum, or ideal, amount of antitrust enforcement. The Model's originators generally believe that there is too much antitrust enforcement, particularly enforcement initiated by private plaintiffs. I intend to show that, even if efficiency is the only antitrust policy goal, a broader array of lawsuits should …

Competition And-Or Efficiency: A Review Of West German Antimerger Law As A Model For The Proposed Treatment Of Efficiency Promotion Under Section 7 Of The Clayton Act, James F. Ponsoldt, Christian Westerhausen

Scholarly Works

The purpose of this Article is to demonstrate the need for legislative change in the Clayton Act. Such change should be based upon the merger control legislation enacted in the Federal Republic of Germany ("Germany"), which explicitly recognizes an appropriate role for the efficiency effects of mergers but, at the same time, often subordinates the role of efficiency to the quite separate goal of protecting competitive markets, when those goals conflict. This Article first will briefly summarize the existing state of United States antimerger law, insofar as Section 7 of the Clayton Act and its history incorporate efficiency considerations. The …

Retaliatorily Discharged Employees’ Standing To Sue Under The Antitrust Laws, Gary M. Shaw

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Attorneys’ Fees In Antitrust Litigation: Making The System Fairer, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Section 4(a) of the Clayton Act entitles prevailing plaintiffs in private antitrust actions to recover, in addition to treble damages, their reasonable attorneys' fees. Unique when adopted as part of the Sherman Act in 1890, this fee-shifting provision has been imitated, at least in part, in over 100 federal statutes. In providing for attorneys' fees, Congress intended to promote private enforcement of the antitrust laws and to insulate the treble damages recovery from expenditures for legal fees. Fee-shifting is mandatory where a plaintiff prevails, but the court has some leeway in setting the amount of the fee. The controversy …

Competition At The Teller's Window?: Altered Antitrust Standards For Banks And Other Financial Institutions, Joseph P. Bauer, Earl W. Kintner

Journal Articles

Congressional and judicial attitudes towards the banking industry have reflected two, sometimes conflicting, goals-the maintenance of the solvency of financial institutions to protect the interests of depositors, other creditors and the economy at large; and the promotion of competition among these institutions and in the economy. The advancement of these goals has been reflected in the application of the antitrust laws to the industry.

For the most part, the Sherman and Clayton Acts apply with the same force and scope to financial institutions as to other industries. In some cases, however, the goal of institutional protection is favored, and the …

Divestiture As A Remedy In Private Actions Brought Under Section 16 Of The Clayton Act, Paul V. Timmins

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that private parties should be permitted to bring suits for divestiture under section 16 of the Clayton Act. Part I analyzes the language of section 16 and the relevant legislative history of the Clayton Act and concludes that Congress did not intend to limit the injunctive relief available to private parties. Part II argues that courts should be free to exercise their broad equity powers to grant the most appropriate and effective relief, including divestiture, to an injured plaintiff. Finally, Part III contends that policy considerations disfavor omitting divestiture from the types of equitable remedies that a …

Redefining The "Cost Of Suit" Under Section Four Of The Clayton Act, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note explores the possible interpretations of the "cost of suit" provision and the policies which it implicates. It concludes that the Copper Liquor interpretation best advances the goals of the antitrust laws set forth by Congress and the courts. Part I examines the development of the present controversy among the circuits. Part II analyzes and refutes the arguments which have been set forth in support of the traditional rule. Part III explores the policy considerations which underlie private treble damage actions and concludes that the Copper Liquor interpretation of the "cost of suit" provision serves them better than does …

The Illinois Brick Dilemma: Is There A Legislative Solution?, Edward D. Cavanagh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, the United States Supreme Court held that in price-fixing actions brought under section 1 of the Sherman Act, only first purchasers in the chain of vertical distribution are "injured," within the meaning of section 4 of the Clayton Act, by the full amount of any overcharge. The Court's ruling bars plaintiffs who are "indirect purchasers" from offering proof that they have been injured by defendants' illegal overcharges which have been "passed on" to them by middlemen. The Court's holding reaffirmed the principles previously enunciated in Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery …

Efficiency Considerations In Merger Enforcement, Alan A. Fisher Ph.D., Robert H. Lande

All Faculty Scholarship

This is one of the first articles to demonstrate that the primary goal of antitrust is neither exclusively to enhance economic efficiency, nor to address any social or political factor. Rather, the overriding intent behind the merger laws was to prevent prices to purchasers from rising due to mergers (a wealth transfer concern). This is the first article to show how to analyze mergers with this goal in mind. Doing so challenges the fundamental underpinnings of Williamsonian merger analysis (which assumes mergers should be evaluated only in terms of net efficiency effects).

In this and three related articles we re-do …