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Showing results for:  “digital markets act”

Common Ownership by Institutional Investors: Beware Antitrust Overreach

The antitrust industry never sleeps – it is always hard at work seeking new business practices to scrutinize, eagerly latching on to any novel theory of anticompetitive harm that holds out the prospect of future investigations.  In so doing, antitrust entrepreneurs choose, of course, to ignore Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase’s warning that “[i]f an economist ... Common Ownership by Institutional Investors: Beware Antitrust Overreach

Event Studies, Fischel, Bradley, and John Armstrong

I have long held reservations about corporate governance research that hinges on event studies.  (An event study is “an analysis of whether there was a statistically significant reaction in financial markets to past occurrences of a given type of event that is hypothesized to affect public firms’ market values.†An example of the sort of ... Event Studies, Fischel, Bradley, and John Armstrong

The Supreme Court Needs to Intervene and Bring Rationality to Tying Law – and It May Wish to Look at Loyalty Discounts as Well

In Collins Inkjet Corp. v. Eastman Kodak Co. (2015) (subsequently settled, leading to a withdrawal of Kodak’s petition for certiorari), the Sixth Circuit elected to apply the Cascade Health Solutions v. PeaceHealth “bundled discount attribution price-cost” methodology in upholding a preliminary injunction against Kodak’s policy of discounting the price of refurbished Kodak printheads to customers ... The Supreme Court Needs to Intervene and Bring Rationality to Tying Law – and It May Wish to Look at Loyalty Discounts as Well

ABA: You MUST follow the law. (Unless we don’t like it.)

WARNING: This post is off-topic for this blog (it doesn’t relate to markets). If that bothers you, don’t read any further. Moroever, I do not purport to speak for my co-bloggers. Their opinions of the issue discussed below may differ from my own. Having issued those caveats, I cannot resist making one more comment (my ... ABA: You MUST follow the law. (Unless we don’t like it.)

FRAND Rules to Incentivize Innovation in Collective Standard Setting: What Golf Tournaments Can Teach Us

One baleful aspect of U.S. antitrust enforcers’ current (and misguided) focus on the unilateral exercise of patent rights is an attack on the ability of standard essential patent (SEP) holders to obtain a return that incentivizes them to participate in collective standard setting.  (This philosophy is manifested, for example, in a relatively recent U.S. Justice ... FRAND Rules to Incentivize Innovation in Collective Standard Setting: What Golf Tournaments Can Teach Us

Don't Kill Credit

My co-author on this paper on The Effect of the CFPA Act of 2009 on Consumer Credit, David Evans, has a great post over at Catalyst Code on the importance of access to consumer credit during tough financial times.  Here’s the key paragraph: Unfortunately, an awful lot of the proposals that are being floated in ... Don't Kill Credit

A Further Reply to Steve Salop

Dan’s next installment, responding to Steve’s latest post responding to Dan’s latest post on the appropriate liability rule for loyalty discounts. Other posts in the series: Steve, Dan, and Thom. I’m happy to keep going back in forth with Steve until we wear out our welcome at TOTM, or simply wear out. [Keep ’em coming! – ed.] (1) There’s neither input foreclose ... A Further Reply to Steve Salop

How the FCC Will Lose on Net Neutrality

Today’s oral argument in the D.C Circuit over the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules suggests that the case — Verizon v. FCC — is likely to turn on whether the Order impermissibly imposes common carrier regulation on broadband ISPs. If so, the FCC will lose, no matter what the court thinks of the Commission’s sharply contested ... How the FCC Will Lose on Net Neutrality

DOJ Files Another Section 2 Case

Press release here. Here’s an excerpt: The complaint alleges that post-acquisition Microsemi raised prices significantly on small signal transistors certified by the Defense Supply Center Columbus (DSCC), a component of the DOD, at the Joint Army-Navy Technical Exchange-Visual Inspection (JANTXV) and Joint Army-Navy Space (JANS) levels of reliability on its qualified manufacturers list or QML. ... DOJ Files Another Section 2 Case

FTC Proposes Rule Deeming Non-Compete Clauses to be Unfair Methods of Competition

On Jan. 5, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to prohibit employers from entering non-compete clauses with workers.[1] The proposed rule would extend to all workers, whether paid or unpaid, and would require companies to rescind existing non-compete agreements within 180 days of publication of the final rule.[2] ... FTC Proposes Rule Deeming Non-Compete Clauses to be Unfair Methods of Competition

SCOTUS Grants Certiorari in Phoebe Putney

From Bloomberg: The U.S. Supreme Court said it will decide whether states can block antitrust scrutiny of hospital mergers such as Phoebe Putney Health System Inc.’s acquisition of Palmyra Park Hospital in Georgia. The justices today said they will hear the Federal Trade Commission’s appeal of a U.S. appellate court ruling that the proposed purchase of HCA Inc.-owned ... SCOTUS Grants Certiorari in Phoebe Putney

The FTC's Noerr-Pennington Report

David Fischer (Antitrust Review) beat me to the punch announcing the FTC’s release of its staff report from the Bureau of Competition and Office of Policy & Planning on the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, which immunizes private actors urging government action from antitrust enforcement. The full text of the report is available here. This should prove to ... The FTC's Noerr-Pennington Report