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By Morgan Reed

In Philip K. Dick’s famous short story that inspired the Total Recall movies, a company called REKAL could implant “extra-factual memories” into the minds of anyone. That technology may be fictional, but the Apple eBooks case suggests that the ability to insert extra-factual memories into the courts already exists.

The Department of Justice, the Second Circuit majority, and even the Solicitor General’s most recent filing opposing cert. all assert that the large publishing houses invented a new “agency” business model as a way to provide leverage to raise prices, and then pushed it on Apple.

The basis of the government’s claim is that Apple had “just two months to develop a business model” once Steve Jobs had approved the “iBookstore” ebook marketplace. The government implies that Apple was a company so obviously old, inept, and out-of-ideas that it had to rely on the big publishers for an innovative business model to help it enter the market. And the court bought it “wholesale,” as it were. (Describing Apple’s “a-ha” moment when it decided to try the agency model, the court notes, “[n]otably, the possibility of an agency arrangement was first mentioned by Hachette and HarperCollins as a way ‘to fix Amazon pricing.'”)

The claim has no basis in reality, of course. Apple had embraced the agency model long before, as it sought to disrupt the way software was distributed. In just the year prior, Apple had successfully launched the app store, a ground-breaking example of the agency model that started with only 500 apps but had grown to more than 100,000 in 12 months. This was an explosion of competition — remember, nearly all of those apps represented a new publisher: 100,000 new potential competitors.

So why would the government create such an absurd fiction?

Because without that fiction, Apple moves from “conspirator” to “competitor.” Instead of anticompetitive scourge, it becomes a disruptor, bringing new competition to an existing market with a single dominant player (Amazon Kindle), and shattering the control held by the existing publishing industry.

More than a decade before the App Store, software developers had observed that the wholesale model for distribution created tremendous barriers for entry, increased expense, and incredible delays in getting to market. Developers were beholden to a tiny number of physical stores that sold shelf space and required kickbacks (known as spiffs). Today, there are legions of developers producing App content, and developers have earned more than $10 billion in sales through Apple’s App Store. Anyone with an App idea or, moreover, an idea for a book, can take it straight to consumers rather than having to convince a publisher, wholesaler or retailer that it is worth purchasing and marketing.

This disintermediation is of critical benefit to consumers — and yet the Second Circuit missed it. The court chose instead to focus on the claim that if the horizontal competitors conspired, then Apple, which had approached the publishers to ensure initial content would exist at time of launch, was complicit. Somehow Apple could be a horizontal competitor even through it wasn’t part of the publishing industry!

There was another significant consumer and competitive benefit from Apple’s entry into the market and the shift to the agency model. Prior to the Apple iPad, truly interactive books were mostly science fiction, and the few pilot projects that existed had little consumer traction. Amazon, which held 90% of the electronic books market, chose to focus on creating technology that mirrored the characteristics of reading on paper: a black and white screen and the barest of annotation capabilities.

When the iPad was released, Apple sent up a signal flag that interactivity would be a focal point of the technology by rolling out tools that would allow developers to access the iPad’s accelerometer and touch sensitive screen to create an immersive experience. The result? Products that help children with learning disabilities, and competitors fighting back with improved products.

Finally, Apple’s impact on consumers and competition was profound. Amazon switched, as well, and the nascent world of self publishing exploded. Books like Hugh Howey’s Wool series (soon to be a major motion picture) were released as smaller chunks for only 99 cents. And “the Martian,” which is up for several Academy Awards found a home and an audience long before any major publisher came calling.

We all need to avoid the trip to REKAL and remember what life was like before the advent of the agency model. Because if the Second Circuit decision is allowed to stand, the implication for any outside competitor looking to disrupt a market is as grim and barren as the surface of Mars.

By Thomas Hazlett

The Apple e-books case is throwback to Dr. Miles, the 1911 Supreme Court decision that managed to misinterpret the economics of competition and so thwart productive activity for over a century. The active debate here at TOTM reveals why.

The District Court and Second Circuit have employed a per se rule to find that the Apple e-books agreement with five major publishers constituted a violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Citing the active cooperation in contract negotiations involving multiple horizontal competitors (publishers) and the Apple offer, which appears to have raised prices paid for e-books, the conclusion that this is a case of horizontal collusion appears a slam dunk to some. “Try as one may,” writes Jonathan Jacobson, “it is hard to find an easier antitrust case than United States v. Apple.”

I’m guessing that that is what Charles Evans Hughes thought about the Dr. Miles case in 1911.

Upon scrutiny, the apparent simplicity in either instance evaporates. Dr. Miles has been revised as per GTE Sylvania, Leegin, and (thanks, Keith Hylton) Business Electronics v. Sharp Electronics. Let’s here look at the pending Apple dispute.

First, the Second Circuit verdict was not only a split decision on application of the per se rule, the dissent ably stated a case for why the Apple e-books deal should be regarded as pro-competitive and, thus, legal.

Second, the price increase cited as determinative occurred in a two-sided market; the fact asserted does not establish a monopolistic restriction of output. Further analysis, as called for under the rule of reason, is needed to flesh out the totality of the circumstances and the net impact of the Apple-publisher agreement on consumer welfare. That includes evidence regarding what happens to total revenues as market structure and prices change.

Third, a new entrant emerged as per the actions undertaken — the agreements pointedly did not “lack…. any redeeming virtue” (Northwest Wholesale Stationers, 1985), the justification for per se illegality. The fact that a new platform — Apple challenging Amazon’s e-book dominance — was both cause and effect of the alleged anti-competitive behavior is a textbook example of ancillarity. The “naked restraints” that publishers might have imposed had Apple not brought new products and alternative content distribution channels into the mix thus dressed up. It is argued by some that the clothes were skimpy. But that fashion statement is what a rule of reason analysis is needed to determine.

Fourth, the successful market foray that came about in the two-sided e-book market is a competitive victory not to be trifled. As the Supreme Court determined in Leegin: A “per se rule cannot be justified by the possibility of higher prices absent a further showing of anticompetitive conduct. The antitrust laws are designed to protect interbrand competition from which lower prices can later result.” The Supreme Court need here overturn U.S. v. Apple as decided by the Second Circuit in order that the “later result” be reasonably examined.

Fifth, lock-in is avoided with a rule of reason. As the Supreme Court said in Leegin:

As courts gain experience considering the effects of these restraints by applying the rule of reason… they can establish the litigation structure to ensure the rule operates to eliminate anticompetitive restraints….

The lock-in, conversely, comes with per se rules that nip the analysis in the bud, assuming simplicity where complexity obtains.

Sixth, Judge Denise Cote, who issued the District Court ruling against Apple, shows why the rule of reason is needed to counter her per se approach:

Here we have every necessary component: with Apple’s active encouragement and assistance, the Publisher Defendants agreed to work together to eliminate retail price competition and raise e-book prices, and again with Apple’s knowing and active participation, they brought their scheme to fruition.

But that cannot be “every necessary component.” It is not in Apple’s interest to raise prices, but to lower prices paid. Something more has to be going on. Indeed, in raising prices the judge unwittingly cites an unarguable pro-competitive aspect of Apple’s foray: It is competing with Amazon and bidding resources from a rival. Indeed, the rival is, arguably, an incumbent with market power. This cannot be the end of the analysis. That it is constitutes a throwback to the anti-competitive per se rule of Dr. Miles.

Seventh, in oral arguments at the Second Circuit, Judge Raymond J. Lohier, Jr. directed a question to Justice Department counsel, asking how Apple and the publishers “could have broken Amazon’s monopoly of the e-book market without violating antitrust laws.” The DOJ attorney responded, according to an article in The New Yorker, by advising that

Apple could have let the competition among companies play out naturally without pursuing explicit strategies to push prices higher—or it could have sued, or complained to the Justice Department and to federal regulatory authorities.

But the DOJ itself brought no complaint against Amazon — it, instead, sued Apple. And the admonition that an aggressive innovator should sit back and let things “play out naturally” is exactly what will kill efficiency enhancing “creative destruction.” Moreover, the government’s view that Apple “pursued an explicit strategy to push prices higher” fails to acknowledge that Apple was the buyer. Such as it was, Apple’s effort was to compete, luring content suppliers from a rival. The response of the government is to recommend, on the one hand, litigation it will not itself pursue and, on the other, passive acceptance that avoids market disruption. It displays the error, as Judge Jacobs’ Second Circuit dissent puts it, “That antitrust law is offended by gloves off competition.” Why might innovation not be well served by this policy?

Eighth, the choice of rule of reason does not let Apple escape scrutiny, but applies it to both sides of the argument. It adds important policy symmetry. Dr. Miles impeded efficient market activity for nearly a century. The creation of new platforms in Internet markets ought not to have such handicaps. It should be recalled that, in introducing its iTunes platform and its vertically linked iPod music players, circa 2002, the innovative Apple likewise faced attack from competition policy makers (more in Europe, indeed, than the U.S.). Happily, progress in the law had loosened barriers to business model innovation, and the revolutionary ecosystem was allowed to launch. Key to that progressive step was the bulk bargain struck with music labels. Richard Epstein thinks that such industry-wide dealing now endangers Apple’s more recent platform launch. Perhaps. But there is no reason to jump to that conclusion, and much to find out before we embrace it.

By Andrew Albanese

In October of last year, I had the chance to interview Hachette CEO Arnaud Nourry from the stage at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and I asked him whether his 2009 concerns that low e-book prices would devalue the book—the driving factor behind the alleged e-book price-fixing conspiracy—were in the the past. After all, much has changed over the last six years.

Nourry was resolute in his response.

When you lose control over your price point you are on the way to death. We have to be very careful and never think it is behind us. We are still concerned. And I am glad that there is a consensus among major publishers that we should keep control.

As the non-lawyer here, I’m necessarily going to take a slightly different approach to today’s symposium. But I want to be clear, right up front: However the Supreme Court dispatches with Apple’s appeal in it e-book price-fixing case, whether the court declines to take up the appeal, or ultimately reverses, it is going to have little effect on the e-book market.

Even though it triggered a high profile antitrust case, and two years of market sanctions, Apple’s 2010 scheme with publishers to eliminate retail price competition from the e-book market ultimately succeeded. Today, the Big Five publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House) now control the consumer prices of their e-books. Apple does not have to worry about the iBookstore being undercut on price by Amazon. And Amazon’s main competitive advantage has been blunted—its $9.99 price on bestselling new release e-books—“that pitiful, paltry price,” as Daily Beast co-founder Tina Brown once called it—is history. Frontlist e-books now retail for as high as $14.99.

So, how is the e-book market faring, post-Apple? It’s been a mixed bag. On one hand, e-book sales from the Big Five publishers declined in 2015. For Nourry’s company, Hachette, digital sales (including digital audio) accounted for 22% of trade sales last year, down from 26% in 2014. So much for Steve Jobs’ 2010 prediction that Apple would usher in a “mainstream e-book revolution.”

On the other hand, print sales are up. Publishers say the dip in e-book sales and the rebound of print is a sign that the book market that is beginning to find its balance. And while they concede that higher e-book prices are clearly playing a role in the market’s re-balancing act, it is still too early to tell to what degree price or other factors are driving format choices in the publishing market.  

For me, the interesting question is where we go from here. In 2016, for the first time in the modern e-book market’s short history, there are no major disruptions on the horizon: no game-changing device like the iPad; no fundamental changes coming in the retail market (like the agency model); no looming negotiations with Amazon (for now); no court-imposed e-book discounting. With fewer thumbs on the scale, the next two years are poised to present the clearest picture yet of the demand for e-books, what prices work, or don’t, the viability of emerging new channels such as subscription access, where the competitive fault lines truly lie.

In that light, the narrow legal question before the Supreme Court in Apple’s appeal—whether a vertical firm that organizes a price-fixing conspiracy among its suppliers can be condemned as per se liable—feels anticlimactic, and largely academic. Sure, there is $400 million in consumer refunds at stake, per Apple’s settlement with the states and consumer class. But here’s what’s not at stake: the future of innovation.

Despite some outstanding work by Apple’s counsel, and some outraged editorials and amicus briefs, this case has never been about innovation, new technology, or novel business arrangements in emerging markets. When the publishers first agreed to Apple’s terms, they had yet to even see an iPad, or the iBookstore. And there is no dispute that the iPad was going to be used as an e-reading device regardless of whether or not Apple got into e-book retailing.

Rather, as Macmillan CEO John Sargent once suggested in an email, the benefit of the iPad was that its launch presented a singular opportunity to change the business model for e-books—to wrest pricing control from Amazon, and to raise e-book prices to levels they considered “rational.” 

While it is a compelling narrative, it seems highly unlikely to me that upholding per se liability in this case would discourage tech companies from innovating or striking novel new arrangements in emerging digital markets. Again, I am no lawyer. But isn’t the greater concern that, if vindicated, Apple’s scheme would essentially serve as a blueprint for large vertical players to work with major suppliers to eliminate retail price competition from nascent markets?

I keep going back to U.S. attorney Mark Ryan’s closing argument at Apple’s trial. Who knows, Ryan argued, how the market would have solved Amazon’s $9.99 problem? That, it seems to me, remains the key question.

Andrew Richard Albanese is Senior Writer for Publishers Weekly and the author of The Battle of $9.99: How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight.

Imagine

totmauthor —  27 August 2015

by Michael Baye, Bert Elwert Professor of Business at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, and former Director of the Bureau of Economics, FTC

Imagine a world where competition and consumer protection authorities base their final decisions on scientific evidence of potential harm. Imagine a world where well-intentioned policymakers do not use “possibility theorems” to rationalize decisions that are, in reality, based on idiosyncratic biases or beliefs. Imagine a world where “harm” is measured using a scientific yardstick that accounts for the economic benefits and costs of attempting to remedy potentially harmful business practices.

Many economists—conservatives and liberals alike—have the luxury of pondering this world in the safe confines of ivory towers; they publish in journals read by a like-minded audience that also relies on the scientific method.

Congratulations and thanks, Josh, for superbly articulating these messages in the more relevant—but more hostile—world outside of the ivory tower.

To those of you who might disagree with a few (or all) of Josh’s decisions, I challenge you to examine honestly whether your views on a particular matter are based on objective (scientific) evidence, or on your personal, subjective beliefs. Evidence-based policymaking can be discomforting: It sometimes induces those with philosophical biases in favor of intervention to make laissez-faire decisions, and it sometimes induces people with a bias for non-intervention to make decisions to intervene.

by Berin Szoka, President, TechFreedom

Josh Wright will doubtless be remembered for transforming how FTC polices competition. Between finally defining Unfair Methods of Competition (UMC), and his twelve dissents and multiple speeches about competition matters, he re-grounded competition policy in the error-cost framework: weighing not only costs against benefits, but also the likelihood of getting it wrong against the likelihood of getting it right.

Yet Wright may be remembered as much for what he started as what he finished: reforming the Commission’s Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices (UDAP) work. His consumer protection work is relatively slender: four dissents on high tech matters plus four relatively brief concurrences and one dissent on more traditional advertising substantiation cases. But together, these offer all the building blocks of an economic, error-cost-based approach to consumer protection. All that remains is for another FTC Commissioner to pick up where Wright left off.

Apple: Unfairness & Cost-Benefit Analysis

In January 2014, Wright issued a blistering, 17 page dissent from the Commission’s decision to bring, and settle, an enforcement action against Apple regarding the design of its app store. Wright dissented, not from the conclusion necessarily, but from the methodology by which the Commission arrived there. In essence, he argued for an error-cost approach to unfairness:

The Commission, under the rubric of “unfair acts and practices,” substitutes its own judgment for a private firm’s decisions as to how to design its product to satisfy as many users as possible, and requires a company to revamp an otherwise indisputably legitimate business practice. Given the apparent benefits to some consumers and to competition from Apple’s allegedly unfair practices, I believe the Commission should have conducted a much more robust analysis to determine whether the injury to this small group of consumers justifies the finding of unfairness and the imposition of a remedy.

…. although Apple’s allegedly unfair act or practice has harmed some consumers, I do not believe the Commission has demonstrated the injury is substantial. More importantly, any injury to consumers flowing from Apple’s choice of disclosure and billing practices is outweighed considerably by the benefits to competition and to consumers that flow from the same practice.

The majority insisted that the burden on consumers or Apple from its remedy “is de minimis,” and therefore “it was unnecessary for the Commission to undertake a study of how consumers react to different disclosures before issuing its complaint against Apple, as Commissioner Wright suggests.”

Wright responded: “Apple has apparently determined that most consumers do not want to experience excessive disclosures or to be inconvenienced by having to enter their passwords every time they make a purchase.” In essence, he argued, that the FTC should not presume to know better than Apple how to manage the subtle trade-offs between convenience and usability.

Wright was channeling Hayek’s famous quip: “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” The last thing the FTC should be doing is designing digital products — even by hovering over Apple’s shoulder.

The Data Broker Report

Wright next took the Commission to task for the lack of economic analysis in its May 2013 report, “Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability.” In just four footnotes, Wright extended his analysis of Apple. For example:

Footnote 85: Commissioner Wright agrees that Congress should consider legislation that would provide for consumer access to the information collected by data brokers. However, he does not believe that at this time there is enough evidence that the benefits to consumers of requiring data brokers to provide them with the ability to opt out of the sharing of all consumer information for marketing purposes outweighs the costs of imposing such a restriction. Finally… he believes that the Commission should engage in a rigorous study of consumer preferences sufficient to establish that consumers would likely benefit from such a portal prior to making such a recommendation.

Footnote 88: Commissioner Wright believes that in enacting statutes such as the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Congress undertook efforts to balance [costs and benefits]. In the instant case, Commissioner Wright is wary of extending FCRA-like coverage to other uses and categories of information without first performing a more robust balancing of the benefits and costs associated with imposing these requirements

The Internet of Things Report

This January, in a 4-page dissent from the FTC’s staff report on “The Internet of Things: Privacy and Security in a Connected World,” Wright lamented that the report neither represented serious economic analysis of the issues discussed nor synthesized the FTC’s workshop on the topic:

A record that consists of a one-day workshop, its accompanying public comments, and the staff’s impressions of those proceedings, however well-intended, is neither likely to result in a representative sample of viewpoints nor to generate information sufficient to support legislative or policy recommendations.

His attack on the report’s methodology was blistering:

The Workshop Report does not perform any actual analysis whatsoever to ensure that, or even to give a rough sense of the likelihood that the benefits of the staff’s various proposals exceed their attendant costs. Instead, the Workshop Report merely relies upon its own assertions and various surveys that are not necessarily representative and, in any event, do not shed much light on actual consumer preferences as revealed by conduct in the marketplace…. I support the well-established Commission view that companies must maintain reasonable and appropriate security measures; that inquiry necessitates a cost-benefit analysis. The most significant drawback of the concepts of “security by design” and other privacy-related catchphrases is that they do not appear to contain any meaningful analytical content.

Ouch.

Nomi: Deception & Materiality Analysis

In April, Wright turned his analytical artillery from unfairness to deception, long the more uncontroversial half of UDAP. In a five-page dissent, Wright accused the Commission of essentially dispensing with the core limiting principle of the 1983 Deception Policy Statement: materiality. As Wright explained:

The materiality inquiry is critical because the Commission’s construct of “deception” uses materiality as an evidentiary proxy for consumer injury…. Deception causes consumer harm because it influences consumer behavior — that is, the deceptive statement is one that is not merely misleading in the abstract but one that causes consumers to make choices to their detriment that they would not have otherwise made. This essential link between materiality and consumer injury ensures the Commission’s deception authority is employed to deter only conduct that is likely to harm consumers and does not chill business conduct that makes consumers better off.

As in Apple, Wright did not argue that there might not be a role for the FTC; merely that the FTC had failed to justify bringing, let alone settling, an enforcement action without establishing that the key promise at issue — to provide in-store opt-out — was material.

The Chamber Speech: A Call for Economic Analysis

In May, Wright gave a speech to the Chamber of Commerce on “How to Regulate the Internet of Things Without Harming its Future: Some Do’s and Don’ts”:

Perhaps it is because I am an economist who likes to deal with hard data, but when it comes to data and privacy regulation, the tendency to rely upon anecdote to motivate policy is a serious problem. Instead of developing a proper factual record that documents cognizable and actual harms, regulators can sometimes be tempted merely to explore anecdotal and other hypothetical examples and end up just offering speculations about the possibility of harm.

And on privacy in particular:

What I have seen instead is what appears to be a generalized apprehension about the collection and use of data — whether or not the data is actually personally identifiable or sensitive — along with a corresponding, and arguably crippling, fear about the possible misuse of such data.  …. Any sensible approach to regulating the collection and use of data will take into account the risk of abuses that will harm consumers. But those risks must be weighed with as much precision as possible, as is the case with potential consumer benefits, in order to guide sensible policy for data collection and use. The appropriate calibration, of course, turns on our best estimates of how policy changes will actually impact consumers on the margin….

Wright concedes that the “vast majority of work that the Consumer Protection Bureau performs simply does not require significant economic analysis because they involve business practices that create substantial risk of consumer harm but little or nothing in the way of consumer benefits.” Yet he notes that the Internet has made the need for cost-benefit analysis far more acute, at least where conduct is ambiguous as its effects on consumers, as in Apple, to avoid “squelching innovation and depriving consumers of these benefits.”

The Wrightian Reform Agenda for UDAP Enforcement

Wright left all the building blocks his successor will need to bring “Wrightian” reform to how the Bureau of Consumer Protection works:

  1. Wright’s successor should work to require economic analysis for consent decrees, as Wright proposed in his last major address as a Commissioner. BE might not to issue a statement at all in run-of-the-mill deception cases, but it should certainly have to say something about unfairness cases.
  2. The FTC needs to systematically assess its enforcement process to understand the incentives causing companies to settle UDAP cases nearly every time — resulting in what Chairman Ramirez and Commissioner Brill frequently call the FTC’s “common law of consent decrees.”
  3. As Wright says in his Nomi dissent “While the Act does not set forth a separate standard for accepting a consent decree, I believe that threshold should be at least as high as for bringing the initial complaint.” This point should be uncontroversial, yet the Commission has never addressed it. Wright’s successor (and the FTC) should, at a minimum, propose a standard for settling cases.
  4. Just as Josh succeeded in getting the FTC to issue a UMC policy statement, his successor should re-assess the FTC’s two UDAP policy statements. Wright’s successor needs to make the case for finally codifying the DPS — and ensuring that the FTC stops bypassing materiality, as in Nomi.
  5. The Commission should develop a rigorous methodology for each of the required elements of unfairness and deception to justify bringing cases (or making report recommendations). This will be a great deal harder than merely attacking the lack of such methodology in dissents.
  6. The FTC has, in recent years, increasingly used reports to make de facto policy — by inventing what Wright calls, in his Chamber speech, “slogans and catchphrases” like “privacy by design,” and then using them as boilerplate requirements for consent decrees; by pressuring companies into adopting the FTC’s best practices; by calling for legislation; and so on. At a minimum, these reports must be grounded in careful economic analysis.
  7. The Commission should apply far greater rigor in setting standards for substantiating claims about health benefits. In two dissents, Genelink et al and HCG Platinum, Wright demolished arguments for a clear, bright line requiring two randomized clinical trials, and made the case for “a more flexible substantiation requirement” instead.

Conclusion: Big Shoes to Fill

It’s a testament to Wright’s analytical clarity that he managed to say so much about consumer protection in so few words. That his UDAP work has received so little attention, relative to his competition work, says just as much about the far greater need for someone to do for consumer protection what Wright did for competition enforcement and policy at the FTC.

Wright’s successor, if she’s going to finish what Wright started, will need something approaching Wright’s sheer intellect, his deep internalization of the error-costs approach, and his knack for brokering bipartisan compromise around major issues — plus the kind of passion for UDAP matters Wright had for competition matters. And, of course, that person needs to be able to continue his legacy on competition matters…

Compared to the difficulty of finding that person, actually implementing these reforms may be the easy part.

by Hon. F. Scott Kieff, Commissioner, International Trade Commission (on leave from academic post as Fred C. Stevenson Research Professor at George Washington University School of Law)

I join all the others in congratulating Professor Wright on his accomplishments at the FTC. As both an academic and government official myself, I’ve long benefited from Dr. Wright’s work in academia and in government. I’ve also greatly enjoyed a ring-side view of the his upbeat and thoughtful manner for constructively engaging the diverse perspectives offered by personnel across the government, academic, and private sectors. Thanks to President Obama’s nomination and the Senate’s confirmation, Commissioner Wright consistently brought to bear a most serious and productive set of carefully considered ideas in both law and economics that he prudently adapted for helpful real world application. I thank Commissioner Wright for all that he has given to our country, and I wish him all continued success in the many important academic endeavors to which he has returned.

by Robert H. Lande, Venable Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law

There’s an old saying, “It’s better to light a single bipartisan candle than to curse the darkness caused by your opponents.” This might not be the way most people articulate this proverb, but in Washington D. C. anyone who, like Commissioner Joshua Wright, puts so much effort into finding, developing, and promoting bipartisan agreement is a rarity indeed.

Commissioner Wright’s final accomplishment at the Commission was the agency’s Section 5 Policy Statement. It had been a high priority of his for years. In light of the fact that the Commission had gone a century without issuing anything describing its central competition mission and the wide divergence of views at the Commission on the underlying issues, many of us thought his task impossible. But he succeeded! It wasn’t the statement he wanted, of course, but his preferred statement was opposed by so many (including me) that agreement on a detailed document was not feasible. He nevertheless secured a compromise that perhaps will be the building block for a future, more detailed and even more useful document. By persevering and stressing the areas where the Commissioners agreed, he forged a historic bipartisan consensus.

Another example of Commissioner Wright’s approach is a policy recommendation he and his frequent co-author, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, developed, wrote and are promoting together with two extraordinarily unlikely co-authors: Bert Foer, the founder and past President of the American Antitrust Institute, and me, a Director of this organization. You might wonder what the four of us possibly could agree upon?

Wright & Ginsburg sent a proposed set of recommendations to the US Sentencing Commission calling upon it to make a large number of changes involving criminal antitrust penalties. At the same time Foer & Lande recommended that the Sentencing Commission implement an almost opposite list of policy changes. In fact, the dueling recommendations agreed on only one issue: Both wanted to ban corporations convicted of price fixing from hiring their cartel’s convicted employees after they were released from prison. Stressing their agreement, this unlikely quartet co-authored a piece advocating this policy option. We of course hope and believe that the politically diverse names on the recommendation will cause it to have a much greater impact than separate recommendations by either team would have had.

Because he always pushed as hard as possible for his preferred positions, he of course didn’t get everything he wanted. But he persevered and in this way forged and secured whatever agreements he could. In today’s Washington D.C. these candles are noteworthy accomplishments. Kudos to Commissioner Wright!

Ajit Pai on Joshua Wright

totmauthor —  25 August 2015

by Ajit Pai, Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission

I was saddened to learn that Commissioner Joshua Wright is resigning from the Federal Trade Commission. Commissioner Wright leaves the agency with a tremendous legacy. He brought to the FTC’s decision-making groundbreaking economic analysis, such as his opinion in Ardagh/St. Gobain that the government should evaluate possible merger efficiencies under a standard of proof similar to that applied to predicted anticompetitive effects. He proposed and reached across the aisle to accomplish major reforms, such as the FTC’s recent clarification of its Section 5 authority to police “unfair methods of competition” (something the agency had never done in its century-long existence). And he was gracious enough to collaborate with me on several issues, such as Internet regulation.

Consumers across the country are better off for Commissioner Wright’s efforts. I wish him the best as he returns to George Mason University to teach law and economics.

by Thomas W. Hazlett, H.H. Macaulay Endowed Chair in Economics at Clemson University

Josh Wright is a tour de force. He has broken the mold for a Washington regulator — and created a new one. As a scholar, he carefully crafts his analyses of public policy. As a strategic thinker, he tackles the issues that redound to the greatest social benefit. And as a champion of competitive markets, he forcefully advances rules to encourage innovation and consumer welfare. Nearly as important as his diligence within the regulatory process, he is transparent in his objectives and takes every opportunity to enunciate his principles for action. The public knows what he is doing and why it is important. 

As a sample of Commissioner Wright’s dedication to improving regulatory law, I am delighted to suggest the talk he gave April 2, 2015 at Clemson University, hosted by the Information Economy Project. His title: Regulation in High-Tech Markets: Public Choice, Regulatory Capture, and the FTC. He was particularly concerned in describing the harm produced by state and local barriers blocking competitive forces with respect to emerging, disruptive innovations such as Uber and AirBnB, offering remedies available via competition policy. The talk is posted here.

Paul Denis is a partner at Dechert LLP and Deputy Chair of the Firm’s Global Litigation Practice.  His views do not necessarily reflect those of his firm or its clients.

Deterrence ought to be an important objective of enforcement policy.  Some might argue it should be THE objective.  But it is difficult to know what is being deterred by a law if the agency enforcing the law cannot or will not explain its boundaries.  Commissioner Wright’s call for a policy statement on the scope of Section 5 enforcement is a welcome step toward Section 5 achieving meaningful deterrence of competitively harmful conduct.

The draft policy statement has considerable breadth.  I will limit myself to three concepts that I see as important to its application, the temporal dimension (applicable to both harm and efficiencies), the concept of harm to competition, and the concept of cognizable efficiencies.

Temporal Dimension

Commissioner Wright offers a compelling framework, but it is missing an important element — the temporal dimension.  Over what time period must likely harm to competition be felt in order to be actionable?  Similarly, over what time period must efficiencies be realized in order to be cognizable?  On page 8 of the draft policy statement he notes that the Commission may challenge “practices that have not yet resulted in harm to competition but are likely to result in anticompetitive effects if allowed to continue.”  When must those effects be felt?  How good is the Commission’s crystal ball for predicting harm to competition when the claim is that the challenged conduct precluded some future competition from coming to market?  Doesn’t that crystal ball get a bit murky when you are looking further into the future?  Doesn’t it get particularly murky when the future effect depends on one more other things happening between now and the time of feared anticompetitive effects?

We often hear from the Commission that arguments about future entry are too remote in time (although the bright line test of 2 years for entry to have an effect was pulled from the Horizontal Merger Guidelines).  Shouldn’t similar considerations be applied to claims of harm to competition?  The Commission has engaged in considerable innovation to try to get around the potential competition doctrine developed by the courts and the Commission under Section 7 of the Clayton Act.  The policy statement should consider whether there can be some temporal limit to Section 5 claims.  Perhaps the concept of likely harm to competition could be interpreted in an expected value sense, considering both probability of harm and timing of harm, but it is not obvious to me how that interpretation, whatever its theoretical appeal, could be made operational.  Bright line tests or presumptive time periods may be crude but may also be more easily applied.

Harm to Competition

On the “harm to competition” element, I was left unclear if this was a unified concept or whether there were two subparts to it.  Commissioner Wright paraphrases Chicago Board of Trade and concludes that “Conduct challenged under Section 5 must harm competition and cause an anticompetitive effect.” (emphasis supplied).  He then quotes Microsoft for the proposition that conduct “must harm the competitive process and thereby harm consumers.” (emphasis supplied).  The indicators referenced at the bottom of page 18 of his speech strike me as indicators of harm to consumers rather than indicators of harm to the competitive process.  Is there anything more to “harm to competition” than “harm to consumers?”  If so, what is it?  I think there probably should be something more than harm to consumers.  If I develop a new product that drives from the market all rivals, the effect may be to increase prices and reduce output.  But absent some bad act – some harm to the competitive process – my development of the new product should not expose me to a Section 5 claim or even the obligation to argue cognizable efficiencies.

On the subject of indicators, the draft policy statement notes that perhaps most relevant are price or output effects.  But Commissioner Wright’s speech goes on to note that increased prices, reduced output, diminished quality, or weakened incentives to innovate are also indicators (Speech at 19).  Shouldn’t this list be limited to output (or quality-adjusted output)?  If price goes up but output rises, isn’t that evidence that consumers have been benefitted?  Why should I have to defend myself by arguing that there are obvious efficiencies (as evidenced by the increased output)?  The reference to innovation is particularly confusing. I don’t believe there is a well developed theoretical or empirical basis for assessing innovation. The structural inferences that we make about price (often dubious themselves) don’t apply to innovation.  We don’t really know what leads to more or less innovation.  How is it that the Commission can see this indicator?  What is it that they are observing?

Cognizable Efficiencies

On cognizable efficiencies, there is a benefit in that the draft policy statement ties this element to the analogous concept used in merger enforcement.  But there is a disadvantage in that the FTC staff usually finds that efficiencies advanced by the parties in mergers are not cognizable for one reason or another.  Perhaps most of what the parties in mergers advance is not cognizable.  But it strikes me as implausible that after so many years of applying this concept that the Commission still rarely sees an efficiencies argument that is cognizable.  Are merging parties and their counsel really that dense?  Or is it that the goal posts keeping moving to ensure that no one ever scores?  Based on the history in mergers, I’m not sure this second element will amount to much.  The respondent will assert cognizable efficiencies, the staff will reject them, and we will be back in the litigation morass that the draft policy statement was trying to avoid, limited only by the Commission’s need to show harm to competition.

David Balto is a Public Interest Attorney at the Law Offices of David Balto

I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on the current Section 5 discussion and add a few modest thoughts about the very thoughtful speeches of Commissioners Wright and Ohlhausen. I must admit, that as a former FTC Policy dude my mouth salivates at the thought of any new Guidelines. After all what could be more fun that coming out with thought pieces, speeches, commentaries, drafts, revised drafts, reply drafts, and more drafts. What could be more enjoyable than spending hundreds of hours parsing through every word to debate and detect every nuance. And then providing a document that is both sufficiently flexible and informative that it can live and adjust to changing circumstances – that sounds like fun. Why this sounds like an effort that would make any Talmudic debate sound like a simple task.

So I wonder at the outset:  what is the need for any policy statement or guidelines. Although both speeches perhaps may raise the specter of unwarranted enforcement I simply do not see it. No matter what recent FTC administration we refer to the actions seem extremely modest. There are less than a handful of cases in the past decades.

Indeed, the lack of enforcement  should raise concern about the ability to issue any type of policy statement. The question, quite legitimate is whether the agency has the experience from Section 5 enforcement to fully articulate the set of issues and criteria necessary to conclude a practice is an unfair method of competition.

Another concern might be that unclear Section 5 powers might stifle firms from engaging in potentially procompetitive or efficient conduct. So I decided to test that proposition (very informally) by reading through a handful of antitrust counseling treatises on issues such as distribution.  I could find nary a single mention of some additional liability firms faced or additional uncertainty because of the FTC’s Section 5 powers. Obviously the areas where the Commission has tread so far – invitations to collude, improper information sharing and deception involving standards are the types of conduct that have so little redeeming merit that there is no concern over stifling procompetitive conduct.

So as the old lady in the Wendy’s commercial of the 1980s says “Where’s the Beef?”

Now as to the speeches I have a few observations.

First, Section 5 is a law enforcement statute. Congress enacted it to enable the Commission to challenge conduct that was broader that the Sherman Act. It is not a regulatory statute. Like all antitrust laws (except that adopted cousin the Robinson Patman Act) it is a generalist statute, broad in nature to give the Commission and the courts the ability to adapt to changing conduct and changing market conditions. We do not issue policy statements for the other antitrust statutes (there is no statement defining an unreasonable restraint of trade).  Why should there be a statement defining an unfair method of competition?

Second, neither of the speeches recognize that Section 5 is an incipiency statute (like the Clayton Act). Congress intended the FTC to use the statute to attack practices in their incipiency before they become full blown violations.

Third, Commissioner Ohlhausen relies in detail on the Clinton-era executive order on Regulatory Planning and Review EO 12866. I find the idea intriguing but that EO is intended for regulatory agencies and their regulatory regimes – not law enforcement. There are strong reasons why it is necessary to rein in regulatory agencies especially because of the costs they can impose through their regulations. A single law enforcement action does not raise these concerns.

Commissioners Ohlhausen suggests that the agency should hold its fire if there may be other regulatory alternatives (“using the most direct route”). Let’s look at the Phoebe Putney merger or the situations involving regulatory abuse such as the FTC’s 2003 case against Bristol Myers. Would we really feel confident in lobbying the Georgia state legislature or the FDA as an alternative?

Finally, I am concerned about one possible unintended consequence. 29 states have little FTC Acts which condemn unfair methods of competition. Those Acts have led to dozens of important enforcement actions benefitting consumers. Any FTC policy statement on UMC can potentially weaken enforcement under those Acts.

David Balto is a Public Interest Attorney at the Law Offices of David Balto

One must applaud the efforts of Commissioners Ohlhausen and Wright to begin the dialogue about the proper use of Section 5 as a tool of antitrust enforcement. It was 99 years ago that Congress was debating the creation of the Federal Trade Commission and increased guidance on the Commission’s thinking on Section 5 is in order.

One of the most important issues is the type of evidence needed to show a violation. Commissioner Wright has helped fashion the discussion by emphasizing the importance of having strong empirical evidence to support any enforcement action. He emphasizes the risks of relying too heavy on theory when empirical evidence is necessary.

Commissioner Ohlhausen’s speech focuses on the need for an economic basis for enforcement decisions in detail. Using the Clinton-era standards for regulatory action in EO 12866 puts this in even greater perspective. As she notes

E.O. 12866 calls for agencies to base their regulatory decisions on the best reasonably obtainable scientific, technical, economic, and other information concerning the need for, and consequences of, any contemplated regulation. Similarly, any effort to expand UMC beyond the antitrust laws should be grounded in robust economic evidence that the challenged practice is anticompetitive and reduces consumer welfare.

She also notes that

any harm to competition under our UMC authority ought to be substantial.  This substantiality requirement would mirror the one in our Unfairness Statement on the consumer protection side, which states that the consumer injury must be substantial for the agency to pursue an unfair act or practice claim under Section 5 . . . ‘The Commission is not concerned with trivial or merely speculative harm.’

Commissioners Wright and Ohlhausen do not have to wait long to apply their guidance on the need for strong economic evidence.  Their initial challenge will be served up later this month as they consider the appeal of the FTC staff’s challenge to certain distribution practices and alleged collusion by a small industrial firm, McWane.

McWane, a U.S. supplier of ductile iron pipe fittings (DIPF) used in municipal and regional water distribution systems, was alleged to have illegally conspired with its competitors to raise and stabilize DIPF prices and illegally excluded one of its foreign competitors.  After a several month trial the ALJ in a 476 page decision found no illegal conspiracy but found illegal exclusion.  Both decisions are on appeal. The case is on appeal to the full Commission with oral argument on August 22.

  • the staff’s  expert conceded he did not empirically test any of the critical allegations in the case:  i.e.,  the alleged market definition, the alleged exclusion, or the alleged consumer injury.
  • the staff failed to offer any economic test of exclusion or any other type of monopoly conduct.
  • the staff also failed to offer any economic test demonstrating any actual or likely injury to consumers from McWane’s alleged exclusionary conduct (basically providing rebates).
  • the ALJ found exclusion even though the alleged excluded firm, Star Pipe, was able to “clearly” and successfully enter the market, and in any event, was “less efficient” than McWane and thus its prices were always higher.
  • the staff failed to define the market by an economic test.
  • the staff  did not submit any economic evidence supporting the DIFF market.  Its expert performed no SSNIP test, elasticity test or any other economic test using any actual data to find a separate DIFF market.  Instead the staff simply relied on the hypothetical monopolist analysis from the Horizontal Merger Guidelines that the Commission has never previously used in a non-merger case.

Somehow this does not sound like robust economic evidence.

If perhaps the Commissioners fall prey to the weaker natures of enforcers and try to substitute theory for solid economic evidence, I have a cautionary note from one of the most important FTC cases in the 1990s – California Dental Association.  (At the time I was attorney advisor to Chairman Pitofsky).  The staff chose to litigate the case without an economist.  The Commission’s opinion tried to overcome the deficiency by substituting theory and antitrust law for economic evidence.  That effort ultimately failed at the steps of the Supreme Court.