Showing archive for: “EU”
Tax Competition, the Burden of Excessive Taxation, and the European Union’s Apple “State Aids” Case
Government subsidies that selectively favor a particular firm or firms may substantially distort competition within an industry, thereby skewing trading terms, reducing efficiency, and harming consumer welfare. To its credit, the European Union (EU) seeks to stamp out distortive state aid, as explained by the EU’s administrative and law enforcement arm, the European Commission (EC): ... Tax Competition, the Burden of Excessive Taxation, and the European Union’s Apple “State Aids” Case
Ag-biotech merger symposium wrap-up
On Thursday, March 30, Friday March 31, and Monday April 3, Truth on the Market and the International Center for Law and Economics presented a blog symposium — Agricultural and Biotech Mergers: Implications for Antitrust Law and Economics in Innovative Industries — discussing three proposed agricultural/biotech industry mergers awaiting judgment by antitrust authorities around the globe. These proposed ... Ag-biotech merger symposium wrap-up
Innovation as a shield and a club in the agribusiness mergers
People need to eat. All else equal, the more food that can be produced from an acre of land, the better off they’ll be. Of course, people want to pay as little as possible for their food to boot. At heart, the antitrust analysis of the pending agribusiness mergers requires a simple assessment of their ... Innovation as a shield and a club in the agribusiness mergers
Innovation-driven market structure in the ag-biotech industry
Dynamic versus static competition Ever since David Teece and coauthors began writing about antitrust and innovation in high-tech industries in the 1980s, we’ve understood that traditional, price-based antitrust analysis is not intrinsically well-suited for assessing merger policy in these markets. For high-tech industries, performance, not price, is paramount — which means that innovation is key: ... Innovation-driven market structure in the ag-biotech industry
Innovation trends in agriculture and their implications for M&A analysis
The US agriculture sector has been experiencing consolidation at all levels for decades, even as the global ag economy has been growing and becoming more diverse. Much of this consolidation has been driven by technological changes that created economies of scale, both at the farm level and beyond. Likewise, the role of technology has changed ... Innovation trends in agriculture and their implications for M&A analysis
Understanding innovation markets in antitrust analysis
Today, three of the largest proposed mergers — Bayer/Monsanto, Dow/Dupont, and ChemChina/Syngenta — face scrutiny in both the U.S. and Europe over concerns that the mergers will slow innovation in crop biotechnology and crop protection. The incorporation of innovation effects in the antitrust analysis of these agricultural/biotech mergers is quickly becoming more mainstream in both the U.S. ... Understanding innovation markets in antitrust analysis
The Apple tax case: Plain vanilla competition policy?
Since Brussels has ordered Ireland to recover 13€ billion from Apple, much ink has been spilled on the European Commission’s (EC) alleged misuse of power and breach of the “rule of law.” In the Irish Times, Professor Liza Lovdahl-Gormsen wrote that the EC has been “bending” competition law to pursue a corporate taxation agenda in disguise. ... The Apple tax case: Plain vanilla competition policy?
Bundling and Competition Law in China: Sage Comments by the Scalia Law School’s Global Antitrust Institute
Introduction For nearly two years, the Global Antitrust Institute (GAI) at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School has filed an impressive series of comments on foreign competition laws and regulations. The latest GAI comment, dated March 19 (“March 19 comment”), focuses on proposed revisions to the Anti-Unfair Competition Law (AUCL) of the People’s Republic of ... Bundling and Competition Law in China: Sage Comments by the Scalia Law School’s Global Antitrust Institute
Significant Impediment To Industry Innovation: A novel theory of harm in EU merger policy?
In Brussels, the talk of the town is that the European Commission (“Commission”) is casting a new eye on the old antitrust conjecture that prophesizes a negative relationship between industry concentration and innovation. This issue arises in the context of the review of several mega-mergers in the pharmaceutical and AgTech (i.e., seed genomics, biochemicals, “precision ... Significant Impediment To Industry Innovation: A novel theory of harm in EU merger policy?
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
Legatum Institute’s Special Trade Commission Advances Brexit Policies Designed to Promote Economic Freedom and Prosperity – for the United Kingdom and (Eventually) the World
The Legatum Institute (Legatum) is “an international think tank based in London and a registered UK charity [that] . . . focuses on understanding, measuring, and explaining the journey from poverty to prosperity for individuals, communities, and nations.” Legatum’s annual “Legatum Prosperity Index . . . measure[s] and track[s] the performance of 149 countries of ... Legatum Institute’s Special Trade Commission Advances Brexit Policies Designed to Promote Economic Freedom and Prosperity – for the United Kingdom and (Eventually) the World
Commissioner Ohlhausen’s Qualcomm Dissent Points the Way Toward Sound Antitrust Enforcement
The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) regrettable January 17 filing of a federal court injunctive action against Qualcomm, in the waning days of the Obama Administration, is a blow to its institutional integrity and well-earned reputation as a top notch competition agency. Stripping away the semantic gloss, the heart of the FTC’s complaint is that Qualcomm ... Commissioner Ohlhausen’s Qualcomm Dissent Points the Way Toward Sound Antitrust Enforcement
