Showing archive for: “Antitrust Law & Policy”
The Rivals Antitrust Can’t See
The next serious competitor may be waiting for a license, or working on a product nobody has seen yet. Neither shows up in today’s market-share figures. And much of the current antitrust debate ignores both of those figures completely, even as it ponders how aggressively the government should reshape markets. By contrast, a dynamic approach ... The Rivals Antitrust Can’t See
The EPA Takes Its Thumb Off the Power Switch
Power-plant rules do more than regulate pollution. They can also regulate competitors out of the market. That is the overlooked significance of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent repeal of most Biden administration greenhouse-gas standards for power plants. The move is an environmental-policy reversal and also a competition-policy reform. The final rule is only a ... The EPA Takes Its Thumb Off the Power Switch
Tap Your Own Brakes: AI Safety and Antitrust
Frontier artificial-intelligence (AI) labs may have good reasons to tap the brakes. The antitrust question begins when they all reach for the same pedal. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s proposal to “pace the frontier” has become a rallying point for AI companies interested in coordinating a slowdown in capability development. His plan calls for embedded outside ... Tap Your Own Brakes: AI Safety and Antitrust
The DMA’s Magic Words and Missing Off Switch
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) depends on two terms that lawmakers never defined. “Fairness” and “contestability” determine how the European Commission measures gatekeeper compliance, imposes new obligations, and grades its own performance every three years. The law uses both terms liberally but explains neither. Recital 79 even promises that the Commission will apply ... The DMA’s Magic Words and Missing Off Switch
Move Slow and Collude: The Antitrust Problem With Pacing AI
The frontier AI race’s latest safety proposal would have the leading contenders agree on how fast to run. Antitrust law has a less flattering name for that arrangement: a cartel. That is the central problem with the “pacing the frontier” plan that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei unveiled last weekend, and that fellow AI executives Sam ... Move Slow and Collude: The Antitrust Problem With Pacing AI
Checkout Error: A Bad Grocery Plan Meets a Weak Antitrust Case
I’ve criticized plenty of private antitrust cases. This may be the first in which the plaintiffs sued to stop a genuinely bad idea—and I still think they should lose. That is the odd posture of the antitrust challenge to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan for subsidized grocery stores in New York City. On Sept. 9, the ... Checkout Error: A Bad Grocery Plan Meets a Weak Antitrust Case
Prime Targets: Amazon, No-Poach Rules, and the Limits of Antitrust
The State of New Jersey’s antitrust case against Amazon begins with a serious allegation: that Amazon restricted drivers from moving among competing delivery contractors. But the state’s complaint goes much farther. It argues that Amazon’s entire Delivery Service Partner (DSP) system unlawfully gives the company monopsony power over both the small businesses that deliver its ... Prime Targets: Amazon, No-Poach Rules, and the Limits of Antitrust
All-Inclusive Antitrust: Europe’s New Route to Merger Prohibition
Booking.com wanted to become a one-stop shop for a traveler’s entire journey. European regulators saw a different itinerary: a one-way trip to deeper dominance. In a closely watched Sept. 9 judgment, the European Union’s General Court upheld the European Commission’s 2023 decision blocking Booking’s acquisition of Etraveli. The court agreed that adding Etraveli’s flight-booking business ... All-Inclusive Antitrust: Europe’s New Route to Merger Prohibition
One AI, Two Rulebooks: Brussels’ ChatGPT Conundrum
ChatGPT can draft a memo, plan a trip, and search the web. As of Aug. 31, it can add another line to its regulatory résumé: The European Commission has designated it a “very large online search engine” under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The label may sound technical, but it captures a central problem for ... One AI, Two Rulebooks: Brussels’ ChatGPT Conundrum
No Free Ride: Uber’s African Retreat
First, “Uber” became a verb. Now, in parts of Africa, it is becoming past tense. The company’s withdrawal from Nigeria and Uganda complicates one of competition policy’s favorite storylines: U.S. technology platforms enter, conquer, and never leave. That assumption has helped fuel a rush to import rules modeled on the European Union’s Digital Markets Act ... No Free Ride: Uber’s African Retreat
Competing Too Well: Europe’s New Guide to Dominance
Brussels has finally given Article 102 an instruction manual. Issued Sept. 3, the European Commission’s first comprehensive Guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) replace a legal scavenger hunt with a single framework. The catch is that the manual still gives the Commission considerable room ... Competing Too Well: Europe’s New Guide to Dominance
Nothing Runs Like a Deere You Can Repair
Farmers have won the right to repair—at least, if they own John Deere equipment. In July, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a settlement requiring Deere to give farmers and independent repair shops access to the software, manuals, and other resources needed to fix its products. The settlement sensibly balances consumers’ immediate interest in affordable ... Nothing Runs Like a Deere You Can Repair
