Showing results for: “price gouging”
How Not to Promote US Innovation
President Joe Biden’s July 2021 executive order set forth a commitment to reinvigorate U.S. innovation and competitiveness. The administration’s efforts to pass the America COMPETES Act would appear to further demonstrate a serious intent to pursue these objectives. Yet several actions taken by federal agencies threaten to undermine the intellectual-property rights and transactional structures that ... How Not to Promote US Innovation
Does the Market Know Something the FTC Doesn’t?
During the exceptional rise in stock-market valuations from March 2020 to January 2022, both equity investors and antitrust regulators have implicitly agreed that so-called “Big Tech” firms enjoyed unbeatable competitive advantages as gatekeepers with largely unmitigated power over the digital ecosystem. Investors bid up the value of tech stocks to exceptional levels, anticipating no competitive ... Does the Market Know Something the FTC Doesn’t?
Unpacking the Flawed 2021 Draft USPTO, NIST, & DOJ Policy Statement on Standard-Essential Patents (SEPs)
Responding to a new draft policy statement from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (DOJ) regarding remedies for infringement of standard-essential patents (SEPs), a group of 19 distinguished law, economics, and business scholars convened by the International Center ... Unpacking the Flawed 2021 Draft USPTO, NIST, & DOJ Policy Statement on Standard-Essential Patents (SEPs)
The Return of (De Facto) Rate Regulation: Title II Will Slow Broadband Deployment and Access
President Joe Biden’s nomination of Gigi Sohn to serve on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)—scheduled for a second hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee Feb. 9—has been met with speculation that it presages renewed efforts at the FCC to enforce net neutrality. A veteran of tech policy battles, Sohn served as counselor to former FCC ... The Return of (De Facto) Rate Regulation: Title II Will Slow Broadband Deployment and Access
FTC-DOJ RFI on Merger Guidelines: The Agencies Should Proceed with Caution
The Jan. 18 Request for Information on Merger Enforcement (RFI)—issued jointly by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ)—sets forth 91 sets of questions (subsumed under 15 headings) that provide ample opportunity for public comment on a large range of topics. Before chasing down individual analytic rabbit holes related to specific ... FTC-DOJ RFI on Merger Guidelines: The Agencies Should Proceed with Caution
Political Philosophy, Competition, and Competition Law: The Road to and from Neoliberalism, Part 2
In just over a century since its dawn, liberalism had reshaped much of the world along the lines of individualism, free markets, private property, contract, trade, and competition. A modest laissez-faire political philosophy that had begun to germinate in the minds of French Physiocrats in the early 18th century had, scarcely 150 years later, inspired ... Political Philosophy, Competition, and Competition Law: The Road to and from Neoliberalism, Part 2
Intermediaries: The Hero We Need?
In policy discussions about the digital economy, a background assumption that frequently underlies the discourse is that intermediaries and centralization always and only serve as a cost to consumers, and to society more generally. Thus, one commonly sees arguments that consumers would be better off if they could freely combine products from different trading partners. ... Intermediaries: The Hero We Need?
Amazon Italy’s Efficiency Offense
Early last month, the Italian competition authority issued a record 1.128 billion euro fine against Amazon for abuse of dominance under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). In its order, the Agenzia Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) essentially argues that Amazon has combined its Amazon.it marketplace ... Amazon Italy’s Efficiency Offense
Crusade Against ‘Big Meat’ Is Latest Example of Misguided Effort to Use Antitrust as Anti-Inflation Tool
As a new year dawns, the Biden administration remains fixated on illogical, counterproductive “big is bad” nostrums. Noted economist and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers correctly stressed recently that using antitrust to fight inflation represents “science denial,” tweeting that: https://twitter.com/LHSummers/status/1475230229715161088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1475230229715161088%7Ctwgr%5E96a71298bebab919293b15f5c86903f5e1c33519%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flaweconcenter.wpengine.com%2F2022%2F01%2F05%2Fcrusade-against-big-meat-is-latest-example-of-misguided-effort-to-use-antitrust-as-anti-inflation-tool%2F In his extended Twitter thread, Summers notes that labor shortages are the primary cause ... Crusade Against ‘Big Meat’ Is Latest Example of Misguided Effort to Use Antitrust as Anti-Inflation Tool
U.S. Senate Self-Preferencing Bill Offers Perfect Recipe for Regulatory Overreach
Even as delivery services work to ship all of those last-minute Christmas presents that consumers bought this season from digital platforms and other e-commerce sites, the U.S. House and Senate are contemplating Grinch-like legislation that looks to stop or limit how Big Tech companies can “self-preference” or “discriminate” on their platforms. A platform “self-preferences” when ... U.S. Senate Self-Preferencing Bill Offers Perfect Recipe for Regulatory Overreach
FTC Challenge to Nvidia-Arm Vertical Merger: Potential Efficiency Justifications
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Dec. 2 filed an administrative complaint to block the vertical merger between Nvidia Corp., a graphics chip supplier, and Arm Ltd., a computing-processor designer. The press release accompanying the complaint stresses the allegation that “the combined firm would have the means and incentive to stifle innovative next-generation technologies, including ... FTC Challenge to Nvidia-Arm Vertical Merger: Potential Efficiency Justifications
Oldie-but-Baddie: The Revival of an Antitrust ‘Efficiencies Offense’?
Recent antitrust forays on both sides of the Atlantic have unfortunate echoes of the oldie-but-baddie “efficiencies offense” that once plagued American and European merger analysis (and, more broadly, reflected a “big is bad” theory of antitrust). After a very short overview of the history of merger efficiencies analysis under American and European competition law, we ... Oldie-but-Baddie: The Revival of an Antitrust ‘Efficiencies Offense’?
