Showing archive for: “Efficiencies”
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 Economics of the Marriage Contract: Theories and Evidence,’ by Niko Matouschek and Imran Rasul
Marriage is a natural subject for law & economics scholars. From Gary Becker’s “A Treatise on the Family” (1981) to Margaret Brinig’s “From Contract to Covenant” (2000), scholars have expanded our understanding of romantic love by examining it through an economic lens. Some object that bringing law & economics into marriage risks coarsening and cheapening ... ‘The Economics of the Marriage Contract: Theories and Evidence,’ by Niko Matouschek and Imran Rasul
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
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
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
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
Your Price May Vary: The FTC’s Personalized-Pricing Puzzle
A price that knows your name may be creepy. It may also be a bargain. That ambiguity sits at the heart of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) proposed enforcement policy statement on personalized pricing, which opens with a candid admission: The practice is “not well understood,” and its effects on consumers remain “unclear.” That uncertainty ... Your Price May Vary: The FTC’s Personalized-Pricing Puzzle
Four Patents and a Time Machine: CareFirst and the Perils of Backdated Antitrust
Four patents can carry a lot of antitrust baggage—especially when they come tucked inside a portfolio of more than 500. In CareFirst of Maryland v. Johnson & Johnson, health insurer CareFirst alleges that Johnson & Johnson unlawfully acquired and later asserted four patents to delay competition from biosimilars, highly similar alternatives to biologic drugs, for ... Four Patents and a Time Machine: CareFirst and the Perils of Backdated Antitrust
Too Many Cooks Spoil the Settlement
In American antitrust, clearing the federal gate increasingly means arriving at the state turnstiles. State attorneys general play a valuable role when harms are local or federal investigators miss key facts. But serial challenges to nationally integrated conduct turn that safeguard into a standing invitation to relitigate. The result is a system in which no ... Too Many Cooks Spoil the Settlement
Brazil’s Gatekeeper Bill Gets a Tuneup, Not a Rethink
Brazil may soon become the first country in the Americas to regulate digital platforms before they do anything wrong. Bill 4,675/2025 would let the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) designate large technology companies as having “systemic relevance” and impose special obligations without first proving anticompetitive conduct or consumer harm. That is a substantial change ... Brazil’s Gatekeeper Bill Gets a Tuneup, Not a Rethink
Brussels Reboots Merger Control. Now Debug the Discretion.
European Union merger control is getting a software update. The question is whether the new code will make the system faster, smarter, and better at spotting real competitive problems—or simply give the European Commission more buttons to press. The pending rewrite of European Union merger-control guidance is the broadest review of the framework in roughly ... Brussels Reboots Merger Control. Now Debug the Discretion.
