Showing results for: “sirius xm merger”
Going Back to Antitrust Basics
Advocates of legislative action to “reform” antitrust law have already pointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s dismissal of the state attorneys general’s case and the “conditional” dismissal of the Federal Trade Commission’s case against Facebook as evidence that federal antitrust case law is lax and demands correction. In fact, the ... Going Back to Antitrust Basics
Alston Decision Shows Consumer Welfare Standard Isn’t Broken
From Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), populist calls to “fix” our antitrust laws and the underlying Consumer Welfare Standard have found a foothold on Capitol Hill. At the same time, there are calls to “fix” the Supreme Court by packing it with new justices. The court’s unanimous decision in NCAA v. ... Alston Decision Shows Consumer Welfare Standard Isn’t Broken
Dynamic Merger Efficiencies: The Case of Pharmaceutical Markets
The recent launch of the international Multilateral Pharmaceutical Merger Task Force (MPMTF) is just the latest example of burgeoning cooperative efforts by leading competition agencies to promote convergence in antitrust enforcement. (See my recent paper on the globalization of antitrust, which assesses multinational cooperation and convergence initiatives in greater detail.) In what is a first, ... Dynamic Merger Efficiencies: The Case of Pharmaceutical Markets
The Virtues and Pitfalls of Economic Models
Interrogations concerning the role that economic theory should play in policy decisions are nothing new. Milton Friedman famously drew a distinction between “positive” and “normative” economics, notably arguing that theoretical models were valuable, despite their unrealistic assumptions. Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu’s highly theoretical work on General Equilibrium Theory is widely acknowledged as one of ... The Virtues and Pitfalls of Economic Models
What Lina Khan’s appointment means for the House antitrust bills
Her appointment also comes as House Democrats are preparing to mark up five bills designed to regulate Big Tech and, in the process, vastly expand the FTC’s powers. This expansion may combine with Khan’s appointment in ways that lawmakers considering the bills have not yet considered. This is a critical time for the FTC. It ... What Lina Khan’s appointment means for the House antitrust bills
Breaking Down House Democrats’ Forthcoming Competition Bills
Democratic leadership of the House Judiciary Committee have leaked the approach they plan to take to revise U.S. antitrust law and enforcement, with a particular focus on digital platforms. Broadly speaking, the bills would: raise fees for larger mergers and increase appropriations to the FTC and DOJ; require data portability and interoperability; declare that large ... Breaking Down House Democrats’ Forthcoming Competition Bills
Bad Blood at the FTC
John Carreyrou’s marvelous book Bad Blood chronicles the rise and fall of Theranos, the one-time Silicon Valley darling that was revealed to be a house of cards.[1] Theranos’s Svengali-like founder, Elizabeth Holmes, convinced scores of savvy business people (mainly older men) that her company was developing a machine that could detect all manner of maladies from ... Bad Blood at the FTC
The Globalization of Antitrust: A Cost-Benefit Appraisal
Overview Virtually all countries in the world have adopted competition laws over the last three decades. In a recent Mercatus Foundation Research Paper, I argue that the spread of these laws has benefits and risks. The abstract of my Paper states: The United States stood virtually alone when it enacted its first antitrust statute in ... The Globalization of Antitrust: A Cost-Benefit Appraisal
Antitrust Lessons from AT&T’s M&A Fiasco
The chorus of condemnation continued with vigor even after the DOJ’s loss in court and AT&T’s consummation of the transaction. With AT&T’s May 17 announcement that it will unwind the two-year-old acquisition and therefore abandon its strategy to integrate content and distribution, it is clear these predictions of impending market dominance were unfounded. This widely ... Antitrust Lessons from AT&T’s M&A Fiasco
Four Reasons to Reject Neo-Brandeisian Critiques of the Consumer Welfare Approach to Antitrust
In the battle of ideas, it is quite useful to be able to brandish clear and concise debating points in support of a proposition, backed by solid analysis. Toward that end, in a recent primer about antitrust law published by the Mercatus Center, I advance four reasons to reject neo-Brandeisian critiques of the consensus (at ... Four Reasons to Reject Neo-Brandeisian Critiques of the Consumer Welfare Approach to Antitrust
How Antitrust Regulators Could Use the ‘Perpetual Inventory Method’ to Value R&D
The slew of recent antitrust cases in the digital, tech, and pharmaceutical industries has brought significant attention to the investments many firms in these industries make in “intangibles,” such as software and research and development (R&D). Intangibles are recognized to have an important effect on a company’s (and the economy’s) performance. For example, Jonathan Haskel ... How Antitrust Regulators Could Use the ‘Perpetual Inventory Method’ to Value R&D
How FTC v. Qualcomm Led to the Nvidia-Arm Acquisition
In a constructive development, the Federal Trade Commission has joined its British counterpart in investigating Nvidia’s proposed $40 billion acquisition of chip designer Arm, a subsidiary of Softbank. Arm provides the technological blueprints for wireless communications devices and, subject to a royalty fee, makes those crown-jewel assets available to all interested firms. Notwithstanding Nvidia’s stated ... How FTC v. Qualcomm Led to the Nvidia-Arm Acquisition
