Posted by Social Science Research Network United States v. AT&T/Time Warner: A Triumph of Economic Analysis By Joshua D. Wright (George Mason University) & Jan Rybnicek (Freshfields) The DOJ’s lawsuit to block the AT&T/Time Warner transaction marks the first time in 40 years that a court has heard a fully-litigated challenge to a vertical merger. […]
Posted by Barron’s Do Institutional Investors Suppress Competition? By Vito J. Racanelli Can institutional investing have anticompetitive effects? I’m still not convinced. The idea, known as the common-ownership theory, received another airing at a panel debate at the Harvard Club Monday. As Barron’s recently wrote, the model is based on studies of airlines and banks that […]
Posted by Social Science Research Network Requiem for a Paradox: The Dubious Rise and Inevitable Fall of Hipster Antitrust By Joshua D. Wright (George Mason University), Elyse Dorsey (FTC), Jan Rybnicek (Freshfields) & Jonathan Klick (U Penn.) For antitrust practitioners, scholars, and economists – those who work with antitrust in agencies, courts, or law firms – the […]
Posted by Hoover Institution The Bezos Busters By Richard A. Epstein Trust the New York Times to go gaga over bad ideas concerning antitrust law. This past week, the front page of the print version of its business section featured an article entitled, “Be Afraid, Jeff Bezos, Be Very Afraid.” The drumbeat continued with the online version, entitled “Amazon’s […]
Posted by The National Law Review The UK Government Issues ‘No-deal’ Competition and Merger Guidance The UK Government published its highly-anticipated technical guidance on merger review and anti-competitive activity on 13 September 2018 which will apply in the case of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit (the ‘Guidance’). Although brief, it provides market players with some form of practical […]
Posted by CNN What makes a monopoly in the age of Amazon? By Lydia DePillis It’s not often that a government agency decides to do a wholesale rethink of how to do its job. But that’s what’s happening at the Federal Trade Commission. On Thursday, the federal watchdog tasked with protecting consumers from fraud and anti-competitive […]
Posted by Social Science Research Network Toward a Coherent Policy on Cartel Damages By Jens-Uwe Franck & Martin Peitz (University of Mannheim) The focus of cartel damages law is on the recovery of the cartel overcharge. Parties other than purchasers are often neglected, not only as a matter of judicial practice, but also due to legal restrictions. […]
Posted by Out-Law Germany sets up body to lead modernisation of competition law By Michael Reich A new body tasked with proposing reforms to competition law to better support digital companies based in Europe has been set up by the German government. The Commission Competition Law 4.0 was set up by the Ministry for Economic Affairs. […]
Posted by Social Science Research Network Killer Acquisitions By Colleen Cunningham, Florian Ederer & Song Ma Firms have incentives to acquire innovative targets to discontinue the development of the targets’ innovation projects and preempt future competition. We call such acquisitions “killer acquisitions.” We develop a parsimonious model in which killer acquisitions arise from an incumbent’s desire to prevent […]
Posted by Forbes The Economics Of Amateurism: Breaking Down The Latest Lawsuit Against The NCAA By Thomas Baker In what could prove to be a battle of economic experts, the NCAA is back in court and must once again defend its amateurism regulations from its own student-athletes. The current case is In Re: Grant-in-Aid Cap […]