Showing archive for: “FTC”
Timothy Muris Wins FTC's Kirkpatrick Award
Congratulations to Former Chairman and current George Mason Professor Muris for taking home the Federal Trade Commission’s prestigious Miles W. Kirkpatrick Award for Lifetime FTC Achievement. As Chairman Leibowitz notes in the press release, “Tim Muris provided inspired service to the Federal Trade Commission and to the American public. He understood the value of combining ... Timothy Muris Wins FTC's Kirkpatrick Award
Section 5, Collateral Consequences, and Counting Unicorns
Judge Frank Easterbrook once opined that observing predatory pricing was a bit like seeing a unicorn — in the sense that it was a phenomena around which there was much lore but not much empirical evidence. The debate over the current expansion of Section 5 liability increasingly has become about the search for a different ... Section 5, Collateral Consequences, and Counting Unicorns
Market Definition and Margins in the New Guidelines
I’m still working through the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, and like Dan, I find myself puzzling over some of the revisions, and in favor of others. I wanted to start with some first impressions. The big movement here, is that the new HMGs repudiate the market definition requirement in the new Section 4 and in ... Market Definition and Margins in the New Guidelines
Harvard Law Review Smacks Around FTC Blogging Rules
See here (HT: Overlawyered): Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revised their Endorsement and Testimonial Guides (Guides) to cover “consumer generated media” such as blogs and other internet media forms.1 In the interest of providing consumers with full disclosure, the Guides require bloggers to disclose any “material connection[s]” they have with producers of any products ... Harvard Law Review Smacks Around FTC Blogging Rules
Whoa There, Big Fellows!
The DoJ/FTC revised merger guidelines, released as a draft for public comment yesterday, have me scratching my head. I need to spend more time with them before I come to any strong views, but the obvious issue-spotter is the elimination of market definition as a necessary step in the analysis. So we all know that ... Whoa There, Big Fellows!
Proposed Merger Guidelines Released
The FTC/ DOJ have released the new proposed horizontal merger guidelines. The public comment period with the Commission ends May 20th. There is a lot to evaluate here. On a quick read through, here are a few of my noted as either changes or interesting as I went through: “Market definition is not an end ... Proposed Merger Guidelines Released
David Balto (and the FTC) gets it woefully wrong on Intel
David Balto has penned a short apologia of the FTC’s Intel case (HT: Danny Sokol). Unfortunately his defense (and, unfortunately, the FTC’s case) is woefully misguided. Balto writes: Intel has been clearly dominant in the market for central processing units (CPUs) with between 80 percent and 98 percent of the market. The practices at issue ... David Balto (and the FTC) gets it woefully wrong on Intel
Blaming the D.C. Circuit for Regulatory Failure?
Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein offers a novel explanation for “regulatory failure.” The D.C. Circuit, has, Pearlstein asserts, “has intimidated, undermined and demoralized the regulatory apparatus” by giving insufficient deference to regulators and “opinions that routinely ignore the plain language of statute and the clear intent of Congress.” Pearlstein holds up three Republican appointees as ... Blaming the D.C. Circuit for Regulatory Failure?
Assessing the claims that the Google-AdMob merger will "leverage Google's dominance" and also kill kittens
News items continue to pile up suggesting that the FTC is likely to challenge Google’s acquisition of mobile application and website advertising provider, AdMob. See this recent article from the Wall Street Journal. News reports today contain this quote from an anonymous source: “The staff (at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission) believes there is a ... Assessing the claims that the Google-AdMob merger will "leverage Google's dominance" and also kill kittens
"The Chicago School of Economics, which is essentially what you learned in Economics 101 back in college"
That is the latest salvo from Commissioner Rosch in discussing Judge Easterbrook’s opinion in Jones v. Harris. I cant decide whether this strikes me as more offensive to the Chicago School of antitrust economics or to Judge Easterbrook. Probably the latter. UPDATE: Another line from the speech: “On Tuesday March 30th, in a 9-1 decision ... "The Chicago School of Economics, which is essentially what you learned in Economics 101 back in college"
The Case Against the Antitrust Case Against Google
We have just uploaded to SSRN a draft of our article assessing the economics and the law of the antitrust case directed at the core of Google’s business: Its search and search advertising platform. The article is Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Antitrust Case Against Google. This is really the ... The Case Against the Antitrust Case Against Google
Politically-Mandated Credit Card Interchange Fees Won’t Create Jobs (But They Will Hurt Consumers and the Economy)
by Geoffrey A. Manne, Joshua D. Wright and Todd J. Zywicki Cross-posted at Business in the Beltway (at Forbes.com) and The Volokh Conspiracy. In a recent commentary at Forbes.com, former Clinton administration economist Robert Shapiro argues that some 250,000 jobs would be created, and consumers would save $27 billion annually, by reducing the interchange fee ... Politically-Mandated Credit Card Interchange Fees Won’t Create Jobs (But They Will Hurt Consumers and the Economy)
