Archives For consumer protection

Commissioner Wright lays down the gauntlet on Section 5

Geoffrey Manne —  16 April 2013

joshua-wright As Thom noted (here and here), Josh’s speech at the ABA Spring Meeting was fantastic.  In laying out his agenda at the FTC, Josh highlighted two areas on which he intends to focus: Section 5 and public restraints on trade.  These are important, even essential, areas, and Josh’s leadership here will be most welcome.

I’m especially encouraged by his comments on Section 5.  As readers of this blog know, Section 5 has been an issue near and dear to our hearts, and Josh’s intention to make it a centerpiece of his agenda at the Commission should come as no surprise. (There are too many posts on topic to link them individually here, but this link includes all our posts tagged with Section 5.  My own most recent discussion of the general topic (with Berin Szoka) is here).

Of perhaps greatest significance is this bit from Josh’s speech:

The Commission, however, has another choice available. It can and should issue a policy statement clearly setting forth its views on what constitutes an unfair method of competition as we have done with respect to our consumer protection mission…. I firmly believe this Commission is up to this important task and I look forward to working with my fellow Commissioners. In that spirit, I will soon informally and publicly distribute a proposed Section 5 Unfair Methods Policy Statement more fully articulating my views and perhaps even providing a useful starting point for a fruitful discussion among the enforcement agencies, the antitrust bar, consumer groups, and the business community.

This is great news, and I eagerly look forward to Josh’s proposed Policy Statement.  As Berin and I noted (and as others, including most notably Bill Kovacic, have noted, as well), this kind of guidance is sorely lacking and much needed:

Rather than attempting to do this in the course of a single litigation, the agency ought to heed Kovacic and Winerman’s advice and do more to “inform judicial thinking” such as by “issu[ing] guidelines or policy statements that spell out its own view about the appropriate analytical framework.”

Not surprisingly, my views line up with Josh’s, and his speech is full of important comments on the current state of Section 5 enforcement at the Commission. Of note:

(1) Objective evaluation of the historical record reveals a remarkable and unfortunate gap between the theoretical promise of Section 5 as articulated by Congress and its application in practice by the Commission;

(2) There is little hope for Section 5 to play a productive role in antitrust enforcement unless the Commission articulates in a policy statement about precisely what constitutes an unfair method, how the agency will decide whether to bring unfair method claims, and a general framework including guiding and limiting principles for evaluating Section 5 cases.

* * *

What does a frank assessment of the 100 year record of Section 5 tell us about its contribution to the competition mission? Or as I might put it, has Section 5 lived up to its promise of nudging the FTC toward evidence-based antitrust? I believe the answer to that question is a resounding “no.” There is no shortage of scholars and commentators filling the empty vessel of Section 5 with visions or further promise or purpose of, for example, creating convergence among international jurisdictions, shifting the attention of competition policy from economic welfare to consumer choice, or incorporating behavioral economics into modern antitrust. History, however, tells us that Section 5 has fallen far short of its intended promise. Section 5 has not produced more than a handful of adjudicated decisions with any durable impact on antitrust doctrine or economic welfare.

* * *

After one hundred years the balance of evidence more than suggests the Commission’s use of Section 5 has done little to influence antitrust doctrine and less to inform judicial thinking or to provide guidance to the business community. This void is not a small matter for an administrative agency whose institutional blueprint contemplated such a significant role for Section 5. In my view, it is the Commission’s duty to provide that guidance. But beyond our obligation as responsible stewards of the FTC and consumers through execution of our competition mission, there is considerable risk to the agency of continuing on its current path of putting Section 5 to use without providing guidance. I simply do not believe that path is sustainable or sound competition policy. Section 5 will not live up to its promise of offering an analytically coherent contribution to competition policy if the Commission continues not to offer guidance.

Focusing in particular on the problem of the currently unfettered Section 5 and how it might sensibly be circumscribed, Josh makes some great points:

First, Section 5 should not be used to evade existing antitrust law. Where courts have proven competent to evaluate a particular type of business conduct under the traditional antitrust laws, there is little reason for the Commission to step in under its unfair methods authority. This is especially the case when Section 5 is used to take advantage of a weakened requirement to prove consumer harm in the rigorous manner required in, for example, Section 2 cases. Evading the consumer welfare proof requirements of existing Sherman Act jurisprudence reduces the credibility of the agency, runs the risk that procompetitive conduct will be condemned under Section 5, and circumvents the healthy development of Sherman Act jurisprudence in the courts.

* * *

A second potential limiting principle is a restriction that Section 5 unfair methods cases – as is the case with invitation to collude cases – do not involve plausible efficiency claims. Not only does the lack of efficiency justification reduce any potential collateral consequences associated with false positives, but determining the presence of absence of cognizable efficiencies also plays to a core institutional strength of the Commission. The Commission’s learning and expertise in this regard has already influenced the evolution of the Merger Guidelines, and is applied on a regular basis.

I have no doubt Josh can and will deliver on his promise of working with the other Commissioners to bring some much needed sense to this problematic aspect of the FTC’s authority. This is an enormously important issue, one in great need of attention, and I can think of no one better than Josh to lead the effort to address it.

In antitrust, consumer protection, federal trade commission, regulation, Section 5 , , , , ,
permalink

Some Thoughts on the Spring Meeting: Bummed About RPM, Happy About the FTC’s Future

Thom Lambert —  12 April 2013

I’ve spent the last few days in DC at the ABA Antitrust Section’s Spring Meeting. The Spring Meeting is the extravaganza of the year for antitrust lawyers, bringing together leading antitrust practitioners, enforcers, and academics for in-depth discussions about developments in the law. It’s really a terrific event. I was honored this year to have been invited (by my old law school classmate, Adam Biegel) to present the “antitrust economics” and “monopolization” sections of the Antitrust Fundamentals session. Former TOTM blogger (now FTC Commissioner) Josh Wright has taught those sections in the past, so I had some pretty big shoes to fill. It was great fun.

Two sessions yesterday really got my blood pumping, albeit for different reasons. The first was a session on counseling clients on RPM after Leegin. Leegin, of course, was the 2007 Supreme Court decision overruling the 1911 Dr. Miles precedent that declared minimum resale price maintenance (RPM) to be per se illegal. Post-Leegin, a manufacturer’s setting of the resale price its downstream dealers may charge is evaluated under the Rule of Reason, at least for purposes of federal antitrust law.

While it was a 5-4 decision, the holding of Leegin is hardly controversial among antitrust scholars. Chicago School and neo-Chicago scholars like myself, Harvard School scholars like Herb Hovenkamp, and even post-Chicago scholars like Einer Elhauge are in agreement that RPM is not always or almost always anticompetitive and thus ought to be analyzed under the Rule of Reason. (Indeed, Elhauge queried: “The puzzle is what provoked a vigorous dissent from Justice Breyer, one of the world’s most sophisticated antitrust justices…”). There’s simply no doubt about Leegin among those who have studied RPM most closely: it was correctly decided.

It was most disheartening, then, to hear a group of esteemed panelist opine that Leegin hasn’t really changed the advice one should give clients considering RPM policies. It’s still wise, the panelists stated, to advise manufacturing clients to avoid RPM and instead to implement either (1) so-called Colgate policies where the manufacturer simply announces and follows a unilateral policy of not selling to dealers who discount, or (2) consignment arrangements where the manufacturer doesn’t sell its product to dealers but instead enlists them as its sales agents and retains title to its product until the product is sold to the end-user consumer. The former approach avoids RPM liability because there is no “agreement” concerning resale prices; the latter, because there is technically no “resale.” Both approaches, though, involve costly and cumbersome methods by which manufacturers may exert control over the resale prices of their products. (See, e.g., golf club manufacturer Ping’s now-classic discussion of the difficulties involved in implementing a Colgate policy.)  So why counsel clients to adopt Colgate policies and consignment/agency arrangements when RPM is now adjudged under the Rule of Reason?

Because of the states — a number of them, at least. Maryland has adopted an explicit Leegin-repealer; California’s Cartwright Act uses language that appears to declare RPM to be per se illegal; and the Supreme Court of Kansas recently held that RPM is per se illegal under that state’s predictably unenlightened antitrust laws.  (Sorry Kansas folk. Proud Mizzou Tiger here.) In addition, a number of states lack statutes or court decisions harmonizing state antitrust law with federal precendents, and at least six have rejected certain federal precedents –chiefly, Illinois Brick – even without statutory repealers. How those states will treat RPM post-Leegin is anybody’s guess. (For an exhaustive and regularly updated list of state law treatment of RPM, see this helpful article and chart by Michael Lindsay.)

So what’s behind states’ hostility toward RPM?  At yesterday’s RPM session, California Senior Assistant Attorney General Kathleen Foote suggested that state attorneys general tend to oppose RPM because they are particularly concerned about consumer protection and because states have had actual experience with RPM under the so-called “Fair Trade” laws that for several decades allowed states to create antitrust immunity for RPM arrangements.  The empirical evidence of conditions under Fair Trade, Ms. Foote says, establishes that RPM leads to higher consumer prices and therefore tends to be anticompetitive.

But these arguments, each of which was considered and rejected in Leegin, have been soundly refuted.  A heightened concern for consumer protection in no way supports adherence to Dr. Miles, for manufacturers generally have an incentive to impose RPM only when doing so benefits consumers.  The retail mark-up — the difference between the price the retailer pays and that which it charges to consumers — is the “price” manufacturers effectively pay for product distribution.  Like consumers, they have no incentive to raise that price (i.e., to increase the mark-up through imposition of RPM) unless doing so generates retailer services that are worth more to consumers than the incremental retail mark-up.  Only then would RPM enhance a manufacturer’s profits, but in that case, it also enhances overall consumer surplus.  In short, manufacturer and consumer interests are generally aligned when it comes to RPM.

With respect to Fair Trade, Ms. Foote was playing a little fast and loose.  The Fair Trade laws did not, like Leegin, simply declare RPM arrangements not to be per se illegal; rather, they said that such arrangements were per se legal.  Hardly anyone doubts that RPM arrangements may sometimes be harmful and should be scrutinized.  But under Leegin – unlike under Fair Trade – anticompetitive instances of RPM (those that facilitate manufacturer or retailer collusion or serve as exclusionary devices for dominant manufacturers or retailers) may be condemned.  Thus, the fact that states witnessed consumer harm under Fair Trade’s regime of per se legality says nothing about how consumers will fare under Leegin’s Rule of Reason.

Finally, Ms. Foote’s reasoning that RPM is anticompetitive because the evidence shows it tends to raise prices is fallacious.  Of course RPM raises prices.  It is, after all, the imposition of a price floor.  But that price effect is beside the point.  Each one of the procompetitive, output-enhancing justifications for RPM assumes an increase in consumer prices.  The key is that the increase in retail mark-up will induce dealer services that consumers value more than the amount of the mark-up and will thereby enhance overall sales.  The fact that RPM raises prices, then, is a red herring.

If legislators, courts, and enforcement officials in states like California, Maryland, and Kansas can’t understand these fairly simple points (yes, I realize I’m asking a lot of the Kansans), then the promise of Leegin may go unfulfilled.  It was pretty clear from yesterday’s session that legal advice — and, accordingly, manufacturer practice — will look much as it did pre-Leegin unless the states get their act together.  That’s pretty depressing.

Fortunately, the session following the RPM session was a good bit more promising.  The highlight was a speech by FTC Commissioner Wright, in which he laid out his intentions to promote a more principled understanding of Section 5 of the FTC Act and to pursue the “low-hanging fruit” (his words) of public restraints.  Both developments would be warmly welcomed.

Commissioner Wright maintains that the promise of Section 5 (which enables the FTC, but not private parties, to enjoin unfair methods of competition that do not necessarily constitute antitrust violations) will remain unfulfilled until the FTC lays out the guiding and limiting principles that will govern its use of the provision.  He’s right.  Absent such articulated principles, use of Section 5 could well end up the way Robert Bork once described mid-20th Century antitrust, which he likened to a frontier sheriff who “did not sift the evidence, distinguish between suspects, and solve crimes, but merely walked the main street and every so often pistol-whipped a few people.” The evidence-based principles Commissioner Wright proposes to develop would avoid the frontier sheriff problem by bringing predictability and fairness to the Commission’s implementation of its Section 5 authority.

Even more exciting were Commissioner Wright’s remarks on public restraints.  Without doubt, competition-reducing laws and regulations are responsible for the destruction of vast amounts of consumer welfare.  State action immunity and other legal hurdles, though, make it difficult to police welfare-reducing public restraints.

But litigation isn’t the only weapon in the FTC’s arsenal.  As Commissioner Wright observed, the FTC is uniquely positioned to advocate for the removal of competition-destructive public restraints.  I was heartened to learn that the Commission recently helped persuade Colorado officials not to impose regulations that would have squelched Uber, a smart phone application that is creating much-needed competition in the taxi and private car service market.  It also took the side of the angels in St. Joseph Abbey case, helping to persuade the Fifth Circuit to strike protectionist regulations that reduced competition among casket sellers in Louisiana.  Commissioner Wright also noted that the FTC’s recent victory in the Phoebe Putney case, which narrowed somewhat the scope of state action immunity, will allow it to pursue more public restraints by state and sub-state governmental entities.  This all bodes well for consumers.

So here’s an idea for the FTC: How about using some of that advocacy prowess to convince the anti-Leegin states to bring their RPM doctrine into conformity with federal law?  It might be tough — and Kansas may be beyond help — but I’m confident that Commissioner Wright and his colleagues could help the anti-Leegin states see that they’re not helping consumers by clinging to moth-eaten Dr. Miles.  Instead, they’re just guaranteeing more jobs for lawyers charged with crafting and implementing Colgate policies, consignment relationships, etc.

In antitrust, consumer protection, markets, regulation, resale price maintenance
permalink

Time for Congress to Cancel the FTC’s Section 5 Antitrust Blank Check

Geoffrey Manne —  20 December 2012

By Geoffrey Manne and Berin Szoka

A debate is brewing in Congress over whether to allow the Federal Trade Commission to sidestep decades of antitrust case law and economic theory to define, on its own, when competition becomes “unfair.” Unless Congress cancels the FTC’s blank check, uncertainty about the breadth of the agency’s power will chill innovation, especially in the tech sector. And sadly, there’s no reason to believe that such expansive power will serve consumers.

Last month, Senators and Congressmen of both parties sent a flurry of letters to the FTC warning against overstepping the authority Congress granted the agency in 1914 when it enacted Section 5 of the FTC Act. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz has long expressed a desire to stake out new antitrust authority under Section 5 over unfair methods of competition that would otherwise be legal under the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts. He seems to have had Google in mind as a test case.

On Monday, Congressmen John Conyers and Mel Watt, the top two Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, issued their own letter telling us not to worry about the larger principle at stake. The two insist that “concerns about the use of Section 5 are unfounded” because “[w]ell established legal principles set forth by the Supreme Court provide ample authority for the FTC to address potential competitive concerns in the relevant market, including search.” The second half of that sentence is certainly true: the FTC doesn’t need a “standalone” Section 5 case to protect consumers from real harms to competition. But that doesn’t mean the FTC won’t claim such authority—and, unfortunately, there’s little by way of “established legal principles” stop the agency from overreaching. Continue Reading…

In antitrust, consumer protection, federal trade commission , ,
permalink

Who’s Flying The Plane?

Michael Sykuta —  12 November 2012

It’s an appropriate question, both figuratively and literally. Today’s news headlines are now warning of a looming pilot shortage. A combination of new qualification standards for new pilots and a large percentage of pilots reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65 is creating the prospect of having too few pilots for the US airline industry.

But it still begs the question of “Why?” According to the WSJ article linked above, the new regulations require newly hired pilots to have at least 1,500 hours of prior flight experience. What’s striking about that number is that it is six times the current requirement, significantly increasing the cost (and time) of training to be a pilot.

Why such a huge increase in training requirements? I don’t fly as often as some of my colleagues, but do fly often enough to be concerned that the person in the front of the plane knows what they’re doing. I appreciate the public safety concerns that must have been at the forefront of the regulatory debate. But the facts don’t support an argument that public safety is endangered by the current level of experience pilots are required to attain. Quite the contrary, the past decade has been among the safest ever for airline passengers. In fact, the WSJ reports that:

Congress’s 2010 vote to require 1,500 hours of experience in August 2013 came in the wake of several regional-airline accidents, although none had been due to pilots having fewer than 1,500 hours.

Indeed, to the extent human error has been involved in airline accidents and near misses over the past decade, federally employed air traffic controllers, not privately employed pilots, have been more to blame.

The coincidence of such a staggering increase in training requirements for new pilots and the impending mandatory retirement of a large percentage of current pilots suggests that perhaps other forces were at work behind the scenes when Congress passed the rules in 2010. Legislative proposals are often written by special interests just waiting in the wings (no pun intended) for an opportune moment. Given the downsizing and cost-reduction focus of the US airline industry over the past many years, no group has been more disadvantaged and no group stands more to gain from the new rules than current pilots and the pilots unions.

And so the question, as we face this looming shortage of newly qualified pilots: Who’s flying the plane?

 

In barriers to entry, consumer protection, markets, political economy, regulation, Sykuta
permalink

Ginsburg & Wright on Behavioral Law and Economics: Its Origins, Fatal Flaws, and Implications for Liberty

Josh Wright —  19 September 2012

My paper with Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg (D.C. Circuit; NYU Law), Behavioral Law & Economics: Its Origins, Fatal Flaws, and Implications for Liberty, is posted to SSRN and now published in the Northwestern Law Review.

Here is the abstract:

Behavioral economics combines economics and psychology to produce a body of evidence that individual choice behavior departs from that predicted by neoclassical economics in a number of decision-making situations. Emerging close on the heels of behavioral economics over the past thirty years has been the “behavioral law and economics” movement and its philosophical foundation — so-called “libertarian paternalism.” Even the least paternalistic version of behavioral law and economics makes two central claims about government regulation of seemingly irrational behavior: (1) the behavioral regulatory approach, by manipulating the way in which choices are framed for consumers, will increase welfare as measured by each individual’s own preferences and (2) a central planner can and will implement the behavioral law and economics policy program in a manner that respects liberty and does not limit the choices available to individuals. This Article draws attention to the second and less scrutinized of the behaviorists’ claims, viz., that behavioral law and economics poses no significant threat to liberty and individual autonomy. The behaviorists’ libertarian claims fail on their own terms. So long as behavioral law and economics continues to ignore the value to economic welfare and individual liberty of leaving individuals the freedom to choose and hence to err in making important decisions, “libertarian paternalism” will not only fail to fulfill its promise of increasing welfare while doing no harm to liberty, it will pose a significant risk of reducing both.

Download here.

 

In behavioral economics, behavioral economics, consumer financial protection bureau, consumer protection, economics, free to choose, Hayek, law and economics
permalink

From July 30 WSJ

Paul H. Rubin —  8 August 2012

Wall Street Journal

‘A Climate That Helps Us Grow’

By PAUL H. RUBIN

President Obama’s riff on small business—”If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen”—has become a major controversy. The Romney campaign has made this quote the subject of several speeches and ads, and there have been rallies all over the country of business people with signs saying that “I did build this business.”

Mr. Obama is now claiming that his words, delivered at a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va., on July 13, were taken out of context. “Of course Americans build their own businesses,” he said in a campaign ad last week. What he meant was simply that government sets the stage for business creation. In his speech, and again in his campaign ad, the example Mr. Obama pointed to was “roads and bridges.”

The context of the speech indicates the president really did mean that “you didn’t build that.” But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt; let’s assume he merely meant that business is impossible without government institutions that create the infrastructure for the economy to operate. As Mr. Obama’s deputy campaign chief Stephanie Cutter said, in clarifying his original remarks on July 24, “We build our businesses through hard work and initiative, with the public and private sectors working together to create a climate that helps us grow. President Obama knows that.”

But business is certainly not getting “a climate that helps us grow” from the current administration. That administration has instead created a hostile climate through its regulatory policies.

The news media report almost daily about new regulatory burdens. More generally, according to an analysis in March by the Heritage Foundation, “Red Tape Rising,” the Obama administration in its first three years adopted 106 major regulations (those with costs over $100 million), compared with 28 such regulations in the George W. Bush administration. Heritage notes that there are 144 more such major regulations in the pipeline.

Consider a major example of government investment—roads and bridges. A transportation system needs roads, but it also needs gasoline. This administration’s policies—its refusal to allow a private company to build the Keystone XL pipeline, its reduction in permits for offshore drilling and increased EPA regulation of pollutants—retard the production of gasoline. If transportation is an important input from government to creating a favorable climate for business, shouldn’t we be encouraging, not discouraging, gasoline production?

Other inputs needed by business are capital and labor. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed by Mr. Obama and enforced by his appointees, makes raising capital and investing more difficult. Since many regulations needed to implement this law have not even been written, business cannot know how to adapt to them. This increases uncertainty and so reduces incentives for investment.

The increased minimum wage, passed and signed in the early days of the administration, discourages hiring of entry-level workers. ObamaCare has increased uncertainty regarding future labor costs and so hindered business in hiring and expanding. The pro-union decisions by Obama appointees at the National Labor Relations Board do not create a climate to help the economy grow.

There are many other burdens placed on business. Example: The Americans With Disabilities Act is being interpreted by the Justice Department to require all hotel-based swimming pools to provide increased access to disabled persons. This will come at a high cost per pool. Many hotels and motels are small, family-run enterprises. This requirement will either lead to an increase in prices or to a decision not to have pools at all.

Either policy will induce patrons to shift to larger chain motels. Interestingly, the application of this rule has been delayed for existing pools until Jan. 31, 2013, after the election. Families vacationing this summer will not notice the new requirement.

If we accept the plain meaning of Mr. Obama’s speech, it indicates that he does not believe in the importance of entrepreneurs in creating businesses. But if we accept the reinterpretation of his speech in light of his administration’s deeds, it indicates a belief that a hostile regulatory climate poses no danger to economic growth. Either interpretation means that this administration is not good for business.

Mr. Rubin is professor of economics at Emory University and president-elect of the Southern Economic Association.

Copyright 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit

In consumer protection, doj, health care, health care reform debate, regulation
permalink

FTC sacrifices the rule of law for more flexibility; Commissioner Ohlhausen wisely dissents

Geoffrey Manne —  1 August 2012

On July 31 the FTC voted to withdraw its 2003 Policy Statement on Monetary Remedies in Competition Cases.  Commissioner Ohlhausen issued her first dissent since joining the Commission, and points out the folly and the danger in the Commission’s withdrawal of its Policy Statement.

The Commission supports its action by citing “legal thinking” in favor of heightened monetary penalties and the Policy Statement’s role in dissuading the Commission from following this thinking:

It has been our experience that the Policy Statement has chilled the pursuit of monetary remedies in the years since the statement’s issuance. At a time when Supreme Court jurisprudence has increased burdens on plaintiffs, and legal thinking has begun to encourage greater seeking of disgorgement, the FTC has sought monetary equitable remedies in only two competition cases since we issued the Policy Statement in 2003.

In this case, “legal thinking” apparently amounts to a single 2009 article by Einer Elhague.  But it turns out Einer doesn’t represent the entire current of legal thinking on this issue.  As it happens, Josh Wright and Judge Ginsburg looked at the evidence in 2010 and found no evidence of increased deterrence (of price fixing) from larger fines:

If the best way to deter price-fixing is to increase fines, then we should expect the number of cartel cases to decrease as fines increase. At this point, however, we do not have any evidence that a still-higher corporate fine would deter price-fixing more effectively. It may simply be that corporate fines are misdirected, so that increasing the severity of sanctions along this margin is at best irrelevant and might counter-productively impose costs upon consumers in the form of higher prices as firms pass on increased monitoring and compliance expenditures.

Commissioner Ohlhausen points out in her dissent that there is no support for the claim that the Policy Statement has led to sub-optimal deterrence and quite sensibly finds no reason for the Commission to withdraw the Policy Statement.  But even more importantly Commissioner Ohlhausen worries about what the Commission’s decision here might portend:

The guidance in the Policy Statement will be replaced by this view: “[T]he Commission withdraws the Policy Statement and will rely instead upon existing law, which provides sufficient guidance on the use of monetary equitable remedies.”  This position could be used to justify a decision to refrain from issuing any guidance whatsoever about how this agency will interpret and exercise its statutory authority on any issue. It also runs counter to the goal of transparency, which is an important factor in ensuring ongoing support for the agency’s mission and activities. In essence, we are moving from clear guidance on disgorgement to virtually no guidance on this important policy issue.

An excellent point.  If the standard for the FTC issuing policy statements is the sufficiency of the guidance provided by existing law, then arguably the FTC need not offer any guidance whatever.

But as we careen toward a more and more active role on the part of the FTC in regulating the collection, use and dissemination of data (i.e., “privacy”), this sets an ominous precedent.  Already the Commission has managed to side-step the courts in establishing its policies on this issue by, well, never going to court.  As Berin Szoka noted in recent Congressional testimony:

The problem with the unfairness doctrine is that the FTC has never had to defend its application to privacy in court, nor been forced to prove harm is substantial and outweighs benefits.

This has lead Berin and others to suggest — and the chorus will only grow louder — that the FTC clarify the basis for its enforcement decisions and offer clear guidance on its interpretation of the unfairness and deception standards it applies under the rubric of protecting privacy.  Unfortunately, the Commission’s reasoning in this action suggests it might well not see fit to offer any such guidance.

In antitrust, consumer protection, federal trade commission, privacy , , , , ,
permalink

Macey Throws Some Cold Water on the CFPB’s New Mortgage Disclosures

Josh Wright —  18 July 2012

In the WSJ, Professor Macey takes measure of the CFPB’s new mortgage disclosures and finds them lacking:

The CFPB is proposing to revise the old forms into a new Loan Estimate Form and Closing Disclosure Form. The old loan form had been five pages; according to the agency website, the new one is three. The closing form remains at five pages. That’s a net savings of two pieces of paper. But the agency rules required to implement the new forms weigh in at an astonishing 1,099 pages.

In evaluating the substance of the new disclosure themselves, Macey concludes the new forms are likely to harm consumers rather than help them.

Do the new rules expand consumer choice? They would forbid many borrowers from making smaller payments every month, followed by a single, one-time balloon payment to retire the principal at the end. They also would cap late fees—which means borrowers would be unable to get a lower interest rate on a loan by agreeing to pay a penalty if they don’t make their payments on time.

The new rules restrict loan-modification fees, which means mortgagors will offer fewer options to do so. They restrict penalties on borrowers who pay off their home loans early. These prepayment fees compensate lenders for the risk of lower returns on their loans. Without this protection they will either decline to offer loans to some borrowers or charge a higher interest rate.

The government’s proposed rules require high-risk customers in high-cost loan markets to meet with financial counselors before taking out a loan. The regulators also want to expand dramatically the number of mortgages classified as high cost. But financial counselors will have to be compensated, whether their advice is good or bad. The law deprives these consumers of the right to do their own homework.

Oddly, hidden on the new disclosure forms is the Annual Percentage Rate. For decades the APR was front and center on government-mandated disclosure documents. It is the single number that shows borrowers the cost of borrowing including such factors as the interest rate, certain fees, and the maturity structure of the loan.

The CFPB claims its consumer testing showed people didn’t understand the APR. Yet if someone is trying to compare two loans—one with a lower interest rate and $15,000 in fees, the other with lower fees but a higher interest rate—it’s not possible to determine which loan is cheaper without the APR.  The new rules do not attempt to generate a single number that can be used for comparison purposes and instead focus on various components of the loan such as fees, penalties, interest rates and maturity separately. This makes it harder, not easier, for borrowers to compare mortgage options.

Ultimately, we will be able to evaluate the impact of these new disclosures empirically by watching the results of the CFPB’s “experiment.”

In consumer financial protection bureau, consumer protection, economics
permalink

New Article Forthcoming in Yale Law Journal: The Antitrust/ Consumer Protection Paradox: Two Policies At War With One Another

Josh Wright —  31 May 2012

Yale Law Journal has published my article on “The Antitrust/ Consumer Protection Paradox: Two Policies At War With One Another.”  The hat tip to Robert Bork’s classic “Antitrust Paradox” in the title will be apparent to many readers.  The primary purpose of the article is to identify an emerging and serious conflict between antitrust and consumer protection law arising out of a sharp divergence in the economic approaches embedded within antitrust law with its deep attachment to rational choice economics on the one hand, and the new behavioral economics approach of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  This intellectual rift brings with it serious – and detrimental – consumer welfare consequences.  After identifying the causes and consequences of that emerging rift, I explore the economic, legal, and political forces supporting the rift.

Here is the abstract:

The potential complementarities between antitrust and consumer protection law— collectively, “consumer law”—are well known. The rise of the newly established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) portends a deep rift in the intellectual infrastructure of consumer law that threatens the consumer-welfare oriented development of both bodies of law. This Feature describes the emerging paradox that rift has created: a body of consumer law at war with itself. The CFPB’s behavioral approach to consumer protection rejects revealed preference— the core economic link between consumer choice and economic welfare and the fundamental building block of the rational choice approach underlying antitrust law. This Feature analyzes the economic, legal, and political institutions underlying the potential rise of an incoherent consumer law and concludes that, unfortunately, there are several reasons to believe the intellectual rift shaping the development of antitrust and consumer protection will continue for some time.

Go read the whole thing.

In antitrust, behavioral economics, bundled discounts, consumer financial protection bureau, consumer protection, economics, federal trade commission
permalink

AALS Call for Papers “Insurance and Consumer Protection Law”

Josh Wright —  27 May 2012

Call for Papers

AALS Section on Insurance Law

“Insurance and Consumer Protection”

2013 AALS Annual Meeting
January 4-7, 2013
New Orleans, Louisiana

The AALS Section on Insurance Law will hold a program on Insurance and Consumer Protection during the AALS 2013 Annual Meeting in New Orleans. The program is scheduled for Sunday, January 6, 2013, from 10:30 AM to 12:15 PM. The program will feature a panel of leading research on consumer protection and insurance markets. Panelists scheduled to participate include: Shawn Cole (Harvard Business School), Kyle Logue (University of Michigan Law School), and Lauren Willis (Loyola Law School Los Angeles). We are looking to add one additional panelist through this Call for Papers.

Submissions: To be considered, a draft paper or proposal must be submitted by email to Joshua C. Teitelbaum, Program Chair, at jct48@law.georgetown.edu. A proposal must be comprehensive enough to allow for a meaningful evaluation of the proposed paper. Submissions must be in PDF format.

Deadline: The deadline for submissions is Tuesday, September 4, 2012. Decisions will be announced by Friday, September 28, 2012.

Eligibility: Full-time faculty members of AALS member law schools are eligible to submit. Faculty at fee-paid law schools; foreign, visiting and adjunct faculty members; graduate students; fellows; and non-law school faculty are not eligible to submit. Papers may already be accepted for publication, provided that the paper will not be published before the AALS meeting.

Expenses: The panelist selected through this Call for Papers will be responsible for paying his or her own annual meeting registration fee and travel expenses.

Inquiries: Inquiries about this Call for Papers may be submitted to Joshua C. Teitelbaum, Georgetown University Law Center, jct48@law.georgetown.edu, (202) 661-6589.

In consumer protection
permalink