Showing archive for: “Rule of Reason”
A Comeback for Dr. Miles?
The Antitrust Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary will hold a hearing Tuesday morning on whether the Leegin decision is good antitrust policy. It is (see, e.g. our TOTM Leegin archives), but I suspect this hearing may be the beginning of the end for minimum RPM’s rule of reason era.
More Thoughts on Free Market Orthodoxy in Antitrust
In my last post I claimed that there is a no “free market economics orthodoxy” amongst antitrust economists or those working in the field of law and economics. In response to the post, an anonymous TOTM reader emails the following related, and probably more interesting, questions: “is there a free market orthodoxy amongst (1) legal ... More Thoughts on Free Market Orthodoxy in Antitrust
Evaluating Leegin
Thom’s excellent post covers most of the important points in Leegin and offers a fairly comprehensive critique of what I deemed to be a surprisingly weak dissent from Justice Breyer. As we’ve noted over and over here at TOTM, the death of Dr. Miles is clearly the right outcome judged based upon the underlying antitrust ... Evaluating Leegin
My Take on Credit Suisse . . .
is here, over at eCCP, and differs somewhat from Thom’s. The takeway excerpt is: Credit Suisse has important implications for antitrust practice. The decision’s effect is to narrow the scope of antitrust law and to invite efforts by regulated industries to narrow it still further. The court’s “clearly incompatible†standard is new and (though it ... My Take on Credit Suisse . . .
Dr. Miles (1911-2007)
So Dr. Miles is dead. May he rest in peace. No great surprises in the majority opinion in Leegin. Justice Kennedy, quite rightly, emphasized points we have asserted numerous times on this blog. Most notably: The per se rule should be reserved for practices that are always, or almost always, anticompetitive. The common law nature ... Dr. Miles (1911-2007)
A New Defense of the Per Se Prohibition Against RPM?
Professor Sokol points to this paper by Ittai Paldor (an SJD student at U. Toronto) which Sokol points out qualifies as the rarely observed defense of the per se rule against RPM. Here’s an excerpt from the abstract: In the following I argue that legal policymakers’ current approach is economically justified. I show that all ... A New Defense of the Per Se Prohibition Against RPM?
One More on Leegin (and then I’ll shut up…promise!)
I was on Spring Break last week and was too tied up to do much blogging on Leegin, which I’ve been following pretty closely. Fortunately, Josh and Keith were on the ball with some great insights. I did eventually manage to do a little tea-leaf reading for the eSapience Center for Competition Policy (eCCP). eCCP ... One More on Leegin (and then I’ll shut up…promise!)
More Thoughts on the Leegin Transcript
A few more thoughts to supplement Josh’s fine posting on the transcript of oral argument in Leegin. I don’t understand Justice Breyer. He recognizes that there are at least some circumstances in which RPM helps consumers. Why isn’t that enough for Dr. Miles to be overruled? Justice Breyer regards this as a “close case” (presumably ... More Thoughts on the Leegin Transcript
Majoras Responds to Conyers Regarding Leegin
There’s just so much paper going back and forth on Leegin that it’s hard to keep up. In addition to various briefs and commentaries and Commissioner Harbour’s de facto brief (also discussed here), there has been some interesting correspondence between Rep. Conyers, Chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary, and Deborah Platt Majoras, Chair ... Majoras Responds to Conyers Regarding Leegin
A Response to Commissioner Harbour’s "Open Letter" on Leegin
Federal Trade Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour has sent the U.S. Supreme Court justices an “open letter” regarding the pending Leegin case. [HT: Danny Sokol.] Leegin, as regular TOTM readers know, will test the continued vitality of Dr. Miles, the 1911 decision making it per se illegal for manufacturers and retailers to agree on minimum retail ... A Response to Commissioner Harbour’s "Open Letter" on Leegin
Antitrust Superprecedent
Shubha Ghosh, of the Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog, is predicting that the Supreme Court will not overrule the 1911 Dr. Miles decision, which holds that “vertical minimum resale price maintenance” (i.e., a manufacturer’s imposition of minimum resale price for his goods) is per se illegal. Ghosh explains: [T]he grant of cert in Leegin is ... Antitrust Superprecedent
Bye Bye, Dr. Miles.
So it looks like Dr. Miles is going down. That’s a good thing. For non-antitrusters, Dr. Miles is a 1911 Supreme Court decision holding that “minimum vertical resale price maintenance” is per se illegal — that is, automatically illegal without inquiry into the practice’s actual effect on competition. Minimum vertical resale price maintenance (or “RPM”) ... Bye Bye, Dr. Miles.
