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Showing results for:  “price gouging”

Exclusion Still Doesn’t Explain Verizon’s Stock Price Non-Reaction to the DOJ Challenge Announcement (Correcting AAI’s Letter to the WSJ Editor)

Yale’s George Priest authored an op-ed in the WSJ on September 6th in which he raised a few of the arguments discussed here at TOTM over the past several weeks regarding the proposed AT&T / T-Mobile merger.  For example, we’ve focused upon the tension between the DOJ complaint’s theories of competitive harm (coordinated and unilateral ... Exclusion Still Doesn’t Explain Verizon’s Stock Price Non-Reaction to the DOJ Challenge Announcement (Correcting AAI’s Letter to the WSJ Editor)

The tangled duty to tell the whole truth

A recent NY App. Div case, Pappas v. Tzolis, presents a tangled web that illustrates the current state of the LLC contracting architecture in the U.S. I previously discussed the lower court opinion in this case, concluding that ” any appeal of this judgment should be interesting.” (See also Peter Mahler.) I was right about ... The tangled duty to tell the whole truth

SEC Organizational Reform Hearing

The semester is off to a bang.  I arrived at Stanford Monday to start teaching in the Law School and begin a research fellowship at the Hoover Institution.  Yesterday I hiked in the mountains overlooking the SF Bay.  Today I am flying back to DC (and blogging in flight, how cool is that) to testify ... SEC Organizational Reform Hearing

2011 Illinois Corporate Colloquium: Shadab on credit risk transfer

The 2011 Illinois Corporate Colloquium got off to a good start with Houman Shadab presenting his paper, The Good, the Bad, and the Savvy: Credit Risk Transfer Governance.  Here’s the abstract: Goldman Sachs and AIG on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis were bound together through a web of credit risk transfer (CRT) contracts ... 2011 Illinois Corporate Colloquium: Shadab on credit risk transfer

Why Did Sprint Pile On the DOJ’s AT&T / T-Mobile Suit?

So, the AT&T / T-Mobile transaction gets more and more interesting.  Sprint has filed a complaint challenging the transaction.  I’ve been commenting on the weakness of the DOJ complaint and in particular, its heavy reliance on market structure to make inferences about competitive effects. The heavy dose of structural presumption in the DOJ complaint — ... Why Did Sprint Pile On the DOJ’s AT&T / T-Mobile Suit?

Do Exclusionary Theories of the AT&T / T-Mobile Transaction Better Explain the Market’s Reaction to the DOJ’s Decision to Challenge the Merger?

I don’t think so. Let’s start from the beginning.  In my last post, I pointed out that simple economic theory generates some pretty clear predictions concerning the impact of a merger on rival stock prices.  If a merger is results in a more efficient competitor, and more intense post-merger competition, rivals are made worse off ... Do Exclusionary Theories of the AT&T / T-Mobile Transaction Better Explain the Market’s Reaction to the DOJ’s Decision to Challenge the Merger?

Why Is Sprint’s Stock Surging Upon the Announcement of the DOJ’s Challenge to the Proposed AT&T / T-Mobile Merger?

Basic economic theory underlies the conventional antitrust wisdom that if a merger makes the merging party a more effective competitorby lowering its costs, rivals facing this more effective competitor post-merger are made worse off, but consumers benefit.  On the other hand, if a merger is likely to result in collusion or a unilateral price increase, ... Why Is Sprint’s Stock Surging Upon the Announcement of the DOJ’s Challenge to the Proposed AT&T / T-Mobile Merger?

A couple of quick thoughts on the DOJ’s filing to block AT&T/T-Mobile

As Josh noted, the DOJ filed a complaint today to block the merger.  I’m sure we’ll have much, much more to say on the topic, but here are a few things that jump out at me from perusing the complaint: The DOJ distinguishes between the business (“Enterprise”) market and the consumer market.  This is actually ... A couple of quick thoughts on the DOJ’s filing to block AT&T/T-Mobile

DOJ Files Suit to Block AT&T / T-Mobile Merger

More on this later.  For now, here is the complaint and the press release: WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice today filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc.   The department said that the proposed $39 billion transaction would substantially lessen competition for mobile wireless telecommunications services ... DOJ Files Suit to Block AT&T / T-Mobile Merger

Hazlett & Wright on The Law and Economics of Network Neutrality

Thomas Hazlett and I have posted The Law and Economics of Network Neutrality: The Federal Communications Commission’s Network Neutrality Order regulates how broadband networks explain their services to customers, mandates that subscribers be permitted to deploy whatever computers, mobile devices, or applications they like for use with the network access service they purchase, imposes a ... Hazlett & Wright on The Law and Economics of Network Neutrality

Natural Disasters and Payday Lending

There has been plenty of Hurricane Irene blogging, and some posts linking natural disasters to various aspects of law and policy (see, e.g. my colleague Ilya Somin discussing property rights and falling trees).   Often, post-natural disaster economic discussion at TOTM turns to the perverse consequences of price gouging laws.  This time around, the damage from ... Natural Disasters and Payday Lending

Waiting for the Steve Jobs of law

Holman Jenkins today joins the many tributes to Steve Jobs: From the beginning, he saw the human possibility in the extraordinarily complex hardware and software engineering of digital devices. The Macintosh should work in a way that’s intuitive, that doesn’t require an owner’s manual. And today you only need to survey the blogosphere or friends ... Waiting for the Steve Jobs of law