Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Canadian Food Law Update, Patricia L. Farnese

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Provided below is an overview of the developments in Canadian food law and policy in 2011. This update considers the regulatory and policy developments and litigation activities by the federal government. This focus reflects the significance of federal activities in the food policy realm.

Setting The Terms Of A Break-Up: The Convergence Of Federal Merger Remedy Policies, Jessica C. Strock

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Eco-Labeling: An Argument For Regulation And Reform, Lauren Sherman

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of various types of eco-labels, focusing primarily on differences between mandatory and voluntary eco-labeling programs. I argue that many of the problems with eco-labeling could be addressed by improving regulations. The current regulation of eco-labeling in the United States is discussed, especially the shortcomings of the FTC’s Green Guides. I recommend creating enforceable national legislation to regulate environmental claims that includes involvement of key stakeholders, a list of acceptable environmental claims, enforceable national definitions of environmental terms, an avenue for manufacturers and consumers to challenge environmental claims, consumer education, and periodic review and …

American Needle’S Progeny? Tennis And Antitrust, Ryan M. Rodenberg, Daniel Hauptman

Pace Intellectual Property, Sports & Entertainment Law Forum

Decided in the shadow of the U.S. Supreme Court’s May 2010 decision in American Needle v. NFL, Ryan M. Rodenberg and Daniel Hauptman analyze Deutscher Tennis Bund v. ATP World Tour (hereinafter DTB v. ATP) and aim to explain its implications for individual sports (e.g. tennis and golf) and sport governance generally. Treatment is afforded to both the District Court’s jury verdict and the Third Circuit’s appellate decision in DTB v. ATP. Despite being the first federal appellate sports antitrust decision rendered following American Needle, this article concludes that DTB v. ATP should not be considered an …

The Regulation Of Online Gaming Across Jurisdictions: Success, Standards And Stability, Peter Nelson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

In 2005 the gaming market was worth an estimated six billion dollars, half of that represented by online gambling revenues. However not all jurisdictions (countries) regulate the industry the same. Some jurisdictions allow the industry to flourish while some go as far as banning the industry all together. I gather data on all 75 global jurisdictions that have some form of online gaming. I analyze which regulations allow the industry to prosper while maintaining quality standards, and which regulations do not work. Preliminary analysis shows that the amount of years a country has allowed online gambling, as well as the …

Misbehavioral Economics: The Case Against Behavioral Antitrust, Joshua D. Wright, Judd E. Stone Ii

Cardozo Law Review

Dissatisfied with the mainstream antitrust jurisprudence that has emerged over the past several decades and garnered widespread consensus, and encouraged by the momentum the financial crisis has generated for intervention, competition policy scholars and regulators have turned to behavioral economics to provide the intellectual foundation for a new, "behaviorally informed" approach to competition policy. We evaluate these behaviorally informed regulatory proposals assuming arguendo ideal conditions for their implementation: the robustness of behavioral findings to the market setting, the appropriateness of imputing those findings to firm behavior, and that regulators and judges do not suffer the same biases. Others have effectively …

The Institutions Of Antitrust Law: How Structure Shapes Substance, William E. Kovacic

Michigan Law Review

Daniel Crane's The Institutional Structure of Antitrust Enforcement ("Institutional Structure") may do for antitrust law what Essence of Decision did for public administration. Unlike most literature on antitrust law, this superb volume does not address pressing issues of substantive analysis (e.g., when can dominant firms offer loyalty discounts?). Instead, Institutional Structure studies the design and operation of the institutions of U.S. antitrust enforcement. Professor Crane skillfully advances a basic and powerful proposition: to master analytical principles without deep knowledge of the policy implementation mechanism is dangerously incomplete preparation for understanding the U.S. antitrust system, or any body of competition law. …

Antitrust Energy, D. Daniel Sokol, Barak Orbach

UF Law Faculty Publications

Marking the centennial anniversary of Standard Oil Co. v. United States, we argue that much of the critique of antitrust enforcement and the skepticism about its social significance suffer from “Nirvana fallacy” — comparing existing and feasible policies to ideal normative policies, and concluding that the existing and feasible ones are inherently inefficient because of their imperfections. Antitrust law and policy have always been and will always be imperfect. However, they are alive and kicking. The antitrust discipline is vibrant, evolving, and global. This essay introduces a number of important innovations in scholarship related to Standard Oil and its modern …

Survival Of The Standard: Today’S Public Interest Requirement In Television Broadcasting And The Return To Regulation, Drew Simshaw

Federal Communications Law Journal

The notion that broadcasters must broadcast in the public interest has always been a requirement; exactly how this requirement is met has taken many forms. This Note examines the history of the public interest requirement in broadcasting-from vagueness to regulation to good faith and presumptions of compliance-and considers the appropriate direction for the public interest requirement's future. The deregulation of the 1980s served a valuable purpose at the time by lifting burdens and sparking innovation. It is time to examine those innovative methods of ascertaining the needs of our communities and providing desired programming, in order to determine ways in …

Assessing Competition In U.S. Wireless Markets: Review Of The Fcc’S Competition Reports, Gerald R. Faulhaber, Robert W. Halm, Hal J. Singer

Federal Communications Law Journal

The FCC's 14th and 15th Annual Wireless Competition reports review a wide variety of evidence, both direct (how firms and customers behave) and indirect (industry concentration measures) in making its competitive assessment. The reports are silent on how to interpret this evidence. In contrast, modem antitrust analysis relies far more on direct evidence. In failing to put more weight on the relevant direct market evidence to reach an informed competitive assessment, the 14th and 15th reports invite erroneous conclusions about the state of competition in wireless markets. The authors are concerned that these erroneous conclusions eventually could adversely influence regulatory …

Consumer Watchdog: The Fcc’S Proposed Rulemaking To Help Consumers Avoid Bill Shock, Cameron Robinson

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Note discusses the proposed rulemaking by the FCC in order to empower consumers against "bill shock." Bill shock is described as what a consumer experiences when he or she receives a bill for his or her cellular phone that is much higher than expected, usually on account of roaming charges. This Note will argue in favor of rulemaking by the FCC and explain how the consumer will be empowered against the confusion of the current system.

The Strategic Use Of Public And Private Litigation In Antitrust As Business Strategy, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article claims that there may be a subset of cases in which private rights of action may work with public rights as an effective strategy for a firm to raise costs against rival dominant firms. A competitor firm may bring its own case (which is costly) and/or have government bring a case on its behalf (which is less costly). Alternatively, if the competitor firm has sufficient financial resources, it can pursue an approach that employs both strategies simultaneously. This situation of public and private misuse of antitrust may not happen often. As the Article will explore, it is not …

Antitrust Rulemaking As A Solution To Abuse On The Standard-Setting Process, Adam Speegle

Michigan Law Review

While many recognize the critical role that technology plays in modern life, few appreciate the role that standards play in contributing to its success. Devices as prevalent as the modern laptop computer for example, may be governed by over 500 interoperability standards, regulating everything from the USB drive to the memory chip. To facilitate adoption of such standards, firms are increasingly turning to standard-setting organizations. These organizations consist of members of an industry who agree to abide by the organization's bylaws, which typically regard topics such as patent disclosure and reasonable licensing. Problems arise, however, when members violate these bylaws …

Section 2 Enforcement And The Great Recession: Why Less (Enforcement) Might Mean More (Gdp), Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

The Great Recession has provoked calls for more vigorous regulation in all sectors, including antitrust enforcement. After President Obama took office, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice abandoned the Bush Administration’s standard of liability under section 2 of the Sherman Act, which forbids unlawful monopolization, as insufficiently interventionist. Based on the premise that similarly lax antitrust enforcement caused and deepened the Great Depression, the Obama Administration outlined a more intrusive and consumer-focused approach to section 2 enforcement as part of a larger national strategy to combat the “extreme” economic crisis the nation was then facing.

This Essay draws …

Ncaa Scholarship Restrictions As Anticompetitive Measures: The One-Year Rule And Scholarship Caps As Avenues For Antitrust Society, Neil Gibson

William & Mary Business Law Review

By referencing the historical record to expose the NCAA’s one-year rule and per sport scholarship limits as cost-cutting, anticompetitive measures imposing harmful effects upon scholarship-seeking student athletes, this Note argues that despite the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana’s unfavorable ruling in Agnew v. NCAA, a Sherman Act claim against the NCAA linking bachelor’s degrees and scholarships could be legally viable. In particular, just application of the quick look rule of reason, an abbreviated form of antitrust analysis, could lead a court to find the NCAA’s one-year rule and per sport scholarship caps as violative of …

Discovery In A Global Economy, Maurice Stucke

Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Third And Extremely Long: Why The Elimination Of The Bcs Seems All But Impossible, Brad Taconi

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

On January 8, 2009, the University of Florida Gators defeated the University of Oklahoma Sooners in Miami, Florida to win the Bowl Championship Series (“BCS”) Championship Game. As a result of their victory, the Gators were named the Associated Press National Champions after capturing forty eight out of a possible sixty five first place votes. The win on the football field gave the Gators their second national championship in three seasons, but it also reignited a debate about the inherent fairness of the BCS system: whether the BCS violates antitrust law, and whether the federal government should interject and force …

Antitrust Law And Virtual Worlds, Marques Tracy

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

Much has been written about the law in virtual worlds, though the focus has been on the more obviously applicable areas of the law, namely property, copyright, and crime. Indeed, in the few instances when disputes involving virtual worlds have reached a federal court, the focus has usually been on contract or copyright claims. It is the purpose of this paper to argue for the use of the antitrust laws as set forth in sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, and possibly the Clayton Act, to forestall the anticompetitive behavior of virtual world developers. First, this paper will …

With The Illinois Brick Wall Down, What's Left?: Determining Antitrust Standing Under State Law, Kellen S. Dwyer

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This Article deals with a problem which has repeatedly arisen in state and federal courts, resulting in a number of splintered opinions. In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that only direct purchasers of a price-fixed product may sue under the Sherman Act. Thus, under the "Illinois Brick rule," consumers who buy a price-fixed product from a middle-man may not sue. Many states responded by passing "Illinois Brick repealers" which aimed to allow such suits. This Article addresses two questions which have divided the state and federal courts: Did the Illinois Brick repealers grant automatic standing to any indirect purchaser of …

Regionalization, Development And Competition Law: Exploring The Political Dimension, David J. Gerber

All Faculty Scholarship

In discussions of the regionalization of competition law, the political dimension often leads a shadowy existence. Regionalization tends to be presented with a hint of a halo around it. States are presented as acting for a shared policy objective intended to benefit all, and political issues often sit uncomfortably with that image. This is particularly true when regionalization involves ‘developing countries’. Here there is often a further level of ‘common good’ discourse. Regionalization is here portrayed not only as a communal experience and goal, but also as one designed to reduce poverty and aid economic development. Where regionalization involves competition …