Showing results for: “coase”
Manne & Stout 1: The Illogic of a Contract/Merger Equivalency Assumption in the Assessment of Vertical Mergers
[TOTM: The following is part of a symposium by TOTM guests and authors on the 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines. The entire series of posts is available here. This post is authored by Geoffrey A. Manne (President & Founder, ICLE; Distinguished Fellow, Northwestern University Center on Law, Business, and Economics ); and Kristian Stout (Associate Director, ... Manne & Stout 1: The Illogic of a Contract/Merger Equivalency Assumption in the Assessment of Vertical Mergers
Kolasky: The DOJ and FTC Should Revise Their Proposed Vertical Merger Guidelines to Emulate the EU’s
On January 10, the Department of Justice (DOJ) withdrew the 1984 DOJ Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines, and, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), released new draft 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines (“DOJ/FTC draft guidelines”) on which it seeks public comment by February 26.[1] In announcing these new draft guidelines, Makan Delrahim, the Assistant Attorney General for ... Kolasky: The DOJ and FTC Should Revise Their Proposed Vertical Merger Guidelines to Emulate the EU’s
The Real Story about Amazon, Counterfeit Listings, and Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) Policies
These days, lacking a coherent legal theory presents no challenge to the would-be antitrust crusader. In a previous post, we noted how Shaoul Sussman’s predatory pricing claims against Amazon lacked a serious legal foundation. Sussman has returned with a new post, trying to build out his fledgling theory, but fares little better under even casual ... The Real Story about Amazon, Counterfeit Listings, and Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) Policies
Merger Lore: Dispelling the Myth of the Maverick
There’s always a reason to block a merger: If a firm is too big, it will be because it is “a merger for monopoly”; If the firms aren’t that big, it will be for “coordinated effects”; If a firm is small, then it will be because it will “eliminate a maverick”. It’s a version of ... Merger Lore: Dispelling the Myth of the Maverick
What Zoom can tell us about network effects and competition policy in digital markets
Zoom, one of Silicon Valley’s lesser-known unicorns, has just gone public. At the time of writing, its shares are trading at about $65.70, placing the company’s value at $16.84 billion. There are good reasons for this success. According to its Form S-1, Zoom’s revenue rose from about $60 million in 2017 to a projected $330 ... What Zoom can tell us about network effects and competition policy in digital markets
What’s hip (in antitrust) today should stay passé: Henry G. Manne on “hipster antitrust”
Today would have been Henry Manne’s 90th birthday. When he passed away in 2015 he left behind an immense and impressive legacy. In 1991, at the inaugural meeting of the American Law & Economics Association (ALEA), Manne was named a Life Member of ALEA and, along with Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase, and federal appeals court ... What’s hip (in antitrust) today should stay passé: Henry G. Manne on “hipster antitrust”
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
ABA Antitrust Section Transition Report: A Respectful Critique
The American Bar Association Antitrust Section’s Presidential Transition Report (“Report”), released on January 24, provides a helpful practitioners’ perspective on the state of federal antitrust and consumer protection enforcement, and propounds a variety of useful recommendations for marginal improvements in agency practices, particularly with respect to improving enforcement transparency and reducing enforcement-related costs. It also ... ABA Antitrust Section Transition Report: A Respectful Critique
The essence of Josh Wright’s FTC tenure was to ensure that benefits outweigh costs; the rest is commentary
As the organizer of this retrospective on Josh Wright’s tenure as FTC Commissioner, I have the (self-conferred) honor of closing out the symposium. When Josh was confirmed I wrote that: The FTC will benefit enormously from Josh’s expertise and his error cost approach to antitrust and consumer protection law will be a tremendous asset to ... The essence of Josh Wright’s FTC tenure was to ensure that benefits outweigh costs; the rest is commentary
CONDITIONAL PRICING PRACTICES AND THE LIMITS OF ANTITRUST
The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) June 23 Workshop on Conditional Pricing Practices featured a broad airing of views on loyalty discounts and bundled pricing, popular vertical business practices that recently have caused much ink to be spilled by the antitrust commentariat. In addition to predictable academic analyses featuring alternative theoretical anticompetitive effects stories, the Workshop ... CONDITIONAL PRICING PRACTICES AND THE LIMITS OF ANTITRUST
Tesla and the Auto Dealers Lobby
In Continental T.V. v. GTE Sylvania (1977), Justice Powell observed that antitrust law should go easy on manufacturer restraints on dealer resale because manufacturers could always decide to integrate forward into distribution and bypass dealers altogether. As anyone who has followed electric car manufacturer Tesla’s recent travails will know, Justice Powell’s observation is not true ... Tesla and the Auto Dealers Lobby
Time for Congress to Cancel the FTC’s Section 5 Antitrust Blank Check
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 ... Time for Congress to Cancel the FTC’s Section 5 Antitrust Blank Check
