Archives For freedom of contract

Geo-Blocking: What is it Good For… A Surprising Amount, Actually.

Dirk Auer & Kristian Stout —  11 December 2020

The European Court of Justice issued its long-awaited ruling Dec. 9 in the Groupe Canal+ case. The case centered on licensing agreements in which Paramount Pictures granted absolute territorial exclusivity to several European broadcasters, including Canal+.

Back in 2015, the European Commission charged six U.S. film studios, including Paramount,  as well as British broadcaster Sky UK Ltd., with illegally limiting access to content. The crux of the EC’s complaint was that the contractual agreements to limit cross-border competition for content distribution ran afoul of European Union competition law. Paramount ultimately settled its case with the commission and agreed to remove the problematic clauses from its contracts. This affected third parties like Canal+, who lost valuable contractual protections. 

While the ECJ ultimately upheld the agreements on what amounts to procedural grounds (Canal+ was unduly affected by a decision to which it was not a party), the case provides yet another example of the European Commission’s misguided stance on absolute territorial licensing, sometimes referred to as “geo-blocking.”

The EC’s long-running efforts to restrict geo-blocking emerge from its attempts to harmonize trade across the EU. Notably, in its Digital Single Market initiative, the Commission envisioned: 

[A] Digital Single Market is one in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured and where individuals and businesses can s​eamlessly access and exercise online activities under conditions of f​air competition,​ and a high level of consumer and personal data protection, irrespective of their nationality or place of residence.

This policy stance has been endorsed consistently by the European Court of Justice. In the 2011 Murphy decision, for example, the court held that agreements between rights holders and broadcasters infringe European competition when they categorically prevent the latter from supplying “decoding devices” to consumers located in other member states. More precisely, while rights holders can license their content on a territorial basis, they cannot restrict so-called “passive sales”; broadcasters can be prevented from actively chasing consumers in other member states, but not from serving them altogether. If this sounds Kafkaesque, it’s because it is.

The problem with the ECJ’s vision is that it elides the complex factors that underlie a healthy free-trade zone. Geo-blocking frequently is misunderstood or derided by consumers as an unwarranted restriction on their consumption preferences. It doesn’t feel “fair” or “seamless” when a rights holder can decide who can access their content and on what terms. But that doesn’t mean geo-blocking is a nefarious or socially harmful practice. Quite the contrary: allowing creators to create different sets of distribution options offers both a return to the creators as well as more choice in general to consumers. 

In economic terms, geo-blocking allows rights holders to engage in third-degree price discrimination; that is, they have the ability to charge different prices for different sets of consumers. This type of pricing will increase total welfare so long as it increases output. As Hal Varian puts it:

If a new market is opened up because of price discrimination—a market that was not previously being served under the ordinary monopoly—then we will typically have a Pareto improving welfare enhancement.

Another benefit of third-degree price discrimination is that, by shifting some economic surplus from consumers to firms, it can stimulate investment in much the same way copyright and patents do. Put simply, the prospect of greater economic rents increases the maximum investment firms will be willing to make in content creation and distribution.

For these reasons, respecting parties’ freedom to license content as they see fit is likely to produce much more efficient outcomes than annulling those agreements through government-imposed “seamless access” and “fair competition” rules. Part of the value of copyright law is in creating space to contract by protecting creators’ property rights. Without geo-blocking, the enforcement of licensing agreements would become much more difficult. Laws restricting copyright owners’ ability to contract freely reduce allocational efficiency, as well as the incentives to create in the first place. Further, when individual creators have commercial and creative autonomy, they gain a degree of predictability that can ensure they will continue to produce content in the future. 

The European Union would do well to adopt a more nuanced understanding of the contractual relationships between producers and distributors. 

In Antitrust & Competition, Copyright, European Union, Google, Intellectual Property, International, Patent, Platforms, Price Discrimination, Truth on the Market , , , , , ,
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The Supreme Court upholds freedom of contract in American Express v Italian Colors Restaurant

Thomas McCarthy —  25 June 2013

[The following is a guest post by Thomas McCarthy on the Supreme Court’s recent Amex v. Italian Colors Restaurant decision. Tom is a partner at Wiley Rein, LLP and a George Mason Law grad. He is/was also counsel for, among others,

So he’s had a busy week….]

The Supreme Court’s recent opinion in American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant (June 20, 2013) (“Amex”) is a resounding victory for freedom-of-contract principles.  As it has done repeatedly in recent terms (see AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (2011); Marmet Health Care Center, Inc. v. Brown (2012)), the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) makes arbitration “a matter of contract,” requiring courts to “rigorously enforce arbitration agreements according to their terms.”  Amex at 3.  In so doing, it rejected the theory that class procedures must remain available to claimants in order to ensure that they have sufficient financial incentive to prosecute federal statutory claims of relatively low value.  Consistent with the freedom-of-contract principles enshrined in the FAA, an arbitration agreement must be enforced—even if the manner in which the parties agreed to arbitrate leaves would-be claimants with low-value claims that are not worth pursuing.

In Amex, merchants who accept American Express cards filed a class action against Amex, asserting that Amex violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act by “us[ing] its monopoly power in the market for charge cards to force merchants to accept credit cards at rates approximately 30% higher than the fees for competing credit cards.”  Amex at 1-2.  And, of course, the merchants sought treble damages for the class under Section 4 of the Clayton Act.  Under the terms of their agreement with American Express, the merchants had agreed to resolve all disputes via individual arbitration, that is, without the availability of class procedures.  Consistent with that agreement, American Express moved to compel individual arbitration, but the merchants countered that the costs of expert analysis necessary to prove their antitrust claims would greatly exceed the maximum recovery for any individual plaintiff, thereby precluding them from effectively vindicating their federal statutory rights under the Sherman Act.  The Second Circuit sided with the merchants, holding that the prohibitive costs the merchants would face if they had to arbitrate on an individual basis rendered the class-action waiver in the arbitration agreement unenforceable.

In a 5-3 majority (per Justice Scalia), the Supreme Court reversed.  The Court began by highlighting the Federal Arbitration Act’s freedom-of-contract mandate—that “courts must rigorously enforce arbitration agreements according to their terms, including terms that specify with whom [the parties] choose to arbitrate their disputes, and the rules under which that arbitration will be conducted.”  Amex at 2-3 (internal quotations and citations omitted).  It emphasized that this mandate applies even to federal statutory claims, “unless the FAA’s mandate has been overridden by a contrary congressional command.”  Amex at 3 (internal quotations and citations omitted).  The Court then briefly explained that no contrary congressional command exists in either the federal antitrust laws or Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (which allows for class actions in certain circumstances).

Next, the Court turned to the merchants’ principal argument—that the arbitration agreement should not be enforced because enforcing it (including its class waiver provision) would preclude plaintiffs from effectively vindicating their federal statutory rights.  The Court noted that this “effective vindication” exception “originated as dictum” in prior cases and that the Court has only “asserted [its] existence” without ever having applied it in any particular case.  Amex at 6.  The Court added that this exception grew out of a desire to prevent a “prospec­tive waiver of a party’s right to pursue statutory reme­dies,” explaining that it “would certainly cover a provision in an arbitration agreement forbidding the assertion of certain statutory rights.”  The Court added that this exception might “perhaps cover filing and administrative fees attached to arbitration that are so high as to make access to the forum impracticable,” Amex at 6, but emphasized that, whatever the scope of this exception, the fact that the manner of arbitration the parties contracted for might make it “not worth the expense” to pursue a statutory remedy “does not constitute the elimination of the right to pursue that remedy.”  Amex at 7.

The Court closed by noting that its previous decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion “all but resolves this case.”  Amex at 8.  In Concepcion, the Court had invalidated a state law “conditioning enforcement of arbitration on the availability of class procedures because that law ‘interfere[d] with fundamental attributes of arbitration.’”   As the Court explained, Concepcion specifically rejected the argument “that class arbitration was necessary to prosecute claims ‘that might otherwise slip through the legal system’” thus establishing “that the FAA’s command to enforce arbitration agreements trumps any interest in ensuring the prosecution of low value claims.”  Amex at 9 (quoting Concepcion).  The Court made clear that, under the FAA, courts are to hold parties to the deal they struck—arbitration pursuant to the terms of their arbitration agreements, even if that means that certain claims may go unprosecuted.  Responding to a dissent penned by Justice Kagan, who complained that the Court’s decision would lead to “[l]ess arbitration,” contrary to the pro-arbitration policies of the FAA, Amex dissent at 5, the Court doubled down on this point, emphasizing that the FAA “favor[s] the absence of litigation when that is the consequence of a class-action waiver, since its ‘principal purpose’ is the enforcement of arbitration agreements according to their terms.”  Amex at 9 n.5 (emphasis added).

By holding parties to the deal they struck regarding the resolution of their disputes, the Court properly vindicates the FAA’s freedom-of-contract mandates.  And even assuming the dissenters are correct that there will be less arbitration in individual instances, the opposite is true on a macro level.  For where there is certainty in contract enforcement, parties will enter into contracts.  Amex thus should promote arbitration by eliminating uncertainty in contracting and thereby removing a barrier to swift and efficient resolution of disputes.

In Antitrust & Competition, Credit Cards, Financial Regulation, Regulation, Supreme Court, Telecommunications, Wireless , , , , , , , , , , ,
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