Showing archive for: “Sherman Antitrust Act”
Intel Settlement Watch Part II
While Intel Corporation nears its settlement deadline with the Federal Trade Commission, it received good news from a federal district court in Delaware evaluating the evidence of alleged consumer harm from the discounts Intel offers to buyers. It is also very important to note that this pass from a US court applying standards of consumer ... Intel Settlement Watch Part II
Fin Reg and Too Big to Fail: A New Kind of Antitrust?
Simon Johnson argues that the conventional antitrust tools of Sherman Act are outdated and ill-equipped to deal with the power of big banks: Why are these antitrust tools not used against today’s megabanks, which have become so powerful that they can sway legislation and regulation massively in their favor, while also receiving generous taxpayer-financed bailouts ... Fin Reg and Too Big to Fail: A New Kind of Antitrust?
Nudging Antitrust (Part 2): Do Critiques of Behavioral Antitrust Have Any Bite?
Part 1 of this short blog series on “Nudging Antitrust,” focused on defining Commissioner Rosch’s recently articulated vision of behavioral economics as it relates to antitrust and competition policy and its differences with more “conventional” economic approaches that are bound by the rationality assumption. By the way, one should note that these more conventional approaches ... Nudging Antitrust (Part 2): Do Critiques of Behavioral Antitrust Have Any Bite?
Antitrust Exemption Time Machine
I’ve been struck of late by the level of activity surrounding antitrust exemptions: health care, insurance, beer and wine wholesalers, retail merchants for the purpose of negotiate interchange fees, newspapers, agricultural cooperatives, and sports leagues. Throw in the high-stakes games being played between rivals to influence the decision-making processes of competition agencies in the US ... Antitrust Exemption Time Machine
Lollapalooza and Antitrust
Apparently, the Illinois Attorney General is investigating Lollapalooza for potential antitrust violations arising out of exclusivity clauses that the concert promoter includes in the contracts signed with artists who play the show. The controversial radius clauses prohibit Lollapalooza acts ranging from the top headliners to the smallest “baby bands” at the bottom of the bill ... Lollapalooza and Antitrust
Will the FTC Sue Apple?
I don’t know. But apparently, industry analysts preliminarily think not. I tend to disagree. At least, I think its far too early to be confident in either direction. Press reports, such as this one, are primarily relying on the report of an analyst who correctly points out that Apple’s market share would be an ... Will the FTC Sue Apple?
Why Congress Should Reject the FTC’s Request for a Trinko Exemption
One of the most significant issues in current US antitrust policy has been the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to avoid some of the rigorous requirements imposed by Section 2 of the Sherman Act in monopolization cases by expanding FTC authority under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA). This issue is nothing new. ... Why Congress Should Reject the FTC’s Request for a Trinko Exemption
An Antitrust Analysis of the Federal Trade Commission’s Complaint Against Intel
As readers of TOTM know, I’ve been critical of both the Federal Trade Commission’s Complaint against Intel from a consumer welfare perspective as well as the wobbly intellectual underpinnings of the Commission’s attempt to expand its FTC Act Section 5 authority to evade (see also here) the more stringent monopolization standards under Section 2 of ... An Antitrust Analysis of the Federal Trade Commission’s Complaint Against Intel
"Prosocial," Output-Reducing Collusion
One of my antitrust students recently pointed me to a television commercial that could inspire a great exam question. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the ad until I’d finished drafting this semester’s antitrust exam (which I’ve been grading…hence the absence from TOTM). The T.V. commercial trumpets an agreement among the members of the American Beverage Association ... "Prosocial," Output-Reducing Collusion
Who is Pressuring Antitrust? A Response to Wright
[Jonathan Baker (American University, currently on leave at the Federal Communications Commission where he is Chief Economist) has written the following response to Josh’s earlier post commenting on Baker’s forthcoming article: Preserving a Political Bargain: The Political Economy of the Non-Interventionist Challenge to Monopolization Enforcement. Eds.] Thanks to Josh for engaging with my article in ... Who is Pressuring Antitrust? A Response to Wright
Some Links
There is quite a bit of IO on Youtube (HT: comments section from MR) Congrats to GMU’s Murat Mungan for taking home the Whitney Prize The lineup for the Alabama Ag/ Antitrust workshop has been announced The CD-MAP antitrust settlement funds are paying for concerts Investigation against Apple looms after complaint from Adobe — the ... Some Links
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
