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The intersection of antitrust and market manipulation law

 |  February 15, 2017

Posted by Social Science Research Network

The intersection of antitrust and market manipulation law

By Shaun D. Ledgerwood & Jeremy A. Verlinda (The Brattle Group)

Abstract:     The antitrust laws are increasingly used to prosecute alleged acts of market manipulation, particularly against firms in the banking and energy industries. Both industries are now regulated subject to fraud-based market manipulation rules, but antitrust remains a vehicle on which private claims are based. If anti-manipulation enforcement wanes (or its legal foundation is eroded) with political change, private antitrust actions might fill the void — if such claims are substitutable. As economists practicing in these fields, we address in this paper whether manipulation claims brought under the antitrust laws are substitutable for those actionable under the manipulation rules.

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