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Showing 9 of 144 Results in Administrative Law

FCC’s Digital-Discrimination Rules: An Open Invitation to Flood the Field with Schlock

TOTM Ahalf-dozen lawsuits have been filed to date challenging the digital-discrimination rules recently approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). These cases were consolidated earlier this month and will now . . .

Ahalf-dozen lawsuits have been filed to date challenging the digital-discrimination rules recently approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). These cases were consolidated earlier this month and will now be heard by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Read the full piece here.

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Telecommunications & Regulated Utilities

Pigou’s Plumber: Regulation as a Discovery Process

Scholarship Abstract Standard accounts of why we have administrative agencies do little to account for those agencies’ ability to generate new information that can inform the . . .

Abstract

Standard accounts of why we have administrative agencies do little to account for those agencies’ ability to generate new information that can inform the regulatory process. Even expertise-based understandings of the administrative state limit the role of agencies to gathering information; and prevailing understandings of the administrative state view agencies as engaged in a policy-development exercise checked by theories of political accountability. This is unfortunate, because, for the same reasons that Congress turns to agencies to regulate in complex policy domains, agencies are typically in the best position to generate and make productive use of information that can inform the regulatory process and help Congress to accomplish its intended legislative goals.

This article offers a new account of how we can—and should—think about agencies’ use of information in the regulatory process: regulation as a discovery process. Drawing from economic understandings of how information is produced and used in both regulation and markets, it argues that using the regulatory process to generate information and ensuring that that information is both captured and productively used to improve regulations should be a priority for administrative law. In so doing, it contributes to a growing literature that argues for more experimentation in regulation and offers an account of the administrative state that is divergent from the interest group and presidential administrative models. Specific applications of these ideas are considered. These include how viewing regulation as a discovery process can resolve tensions in the Major Questions Doctrine and the use of an Executive Order to treat regulations as data-generating natural experiments.

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A Pandemic Treaty Will Double Down on All the Bad Ideas from COVID-19

Popular Media When 194 countries meet in May for the annual World Health Assembly, the World Health Organization (WHO) intends to push health ministers to sign a . . .

When 194 countries meet in May for the annual World Health Assembly, the World Health Organization (WHO) intends to push health ministers to sign a pandemic treaty. Granting the WHO this power risks spurring a new pandemic.

The WHO got a lot of policies wrong on COVID, many of which would effectively be codified in the new treaty. The agency pushed lockdowns and vaccine and mask mandates and promised vaccines would prevent transmission. It consistently failed to show interest in key issues like COVID’s origin or how Sweden achieved such remarkable outcomes — notably half the U.S. death rate — without these draconian measures. And it foolishly believed China would be transparent with its data and control the virus.

Read the full piece here.

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Innovation & the New Economy

The WHO’s Insufficient Curiosity and Humility

TOTM Five months from now, health ministers from the 194 sovereign states recognized by the United Nations (UN) will meet in Geneva to discuss and possibly . . .

Five months from now, health ministers from the 194 sovereign states recognized by the United Nations (UN) will meet in Geneva to discuss and possibly agree to amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHRs), which are intended to “prevent, protect against, prepare, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of diseases.” Ministers will also be asked to approve the text of a new World Health Organization (WHO) convention to combat future pandemics.

While there is a need to coordinate the detection of and response to potential pandemics, it is not clear what role, if any, the WHO should have. Perhaps more importantly, it is uncertain what policies should be put in place (and by whom) to prevent, limit, and respond to any future pandemic. The U.S. government should encourage the WHO to delay both changes to the IHRs and the introduction of a new treaty until several issues are satisfactorily resolved.

Read the full piece here.

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Innovation & the New Economy

Three Problems with Accelerated Access: Will They Be Overcome?

TOTM This post discusses three important problems with the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) accelerated-approval process. The first is that regulatory authorities and patient groups maintain . . .

This post discusses three important problems with the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) accelerated-approval process. The first is that regulatory authorities and patient groups maintain that, legally, the standards of accelerated approval are the same as standard approval. Yet from a risk perspective, the standards are quite different; by shifting risk taking from regulator to patient, physician, and payer, this creates problems. The second problem is more practical and is generally considered the most significant problem with accelerated approval. Some companies that have received accelerated approval for their products have not done confirmatory studies, as required by their agreement with FDA. This leads to distrust of these companies and their products, and threatens to undermine the accelerated-approval program. The third problem is the issue of approving medicines with marginal benefits.

Read the full piece here.

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Innovation & the New Economy

The Supreme Court ‘Pulled a Brodie’: Swift and Erie in a Commercial Law Perspective

Scholarship Abstract Erie Railroad v. Tompkins is a cornerstone of modern American law. Erie overturned Swift v. Tyson, a case that had stood for nearly a century with minimal objection. Swift involved . . .

Abstract

Erie Railroad v. Tompkins is a cornerstone of modern American law. Erie overturned Swift v. Tyson, a case that had stood for nearly a century with minimal objection. Swift involved the negotiability of commercial paper and the holding of the case, that in disputes heard in federal courts under diversity jurisdiction, the court should use traditional common law methods to resolve the case rather than feeling bound by the authoritative pronouncements of a state court.

Correspondence between Harvard Law School’s Lon Fuller and Yale’s Arthur Corbin—arguably the two greatest Contracts Law professors of the mid-Twentieth Century—reveals widespread ridicule and dismay among commercial lawyers and scholars following Erie. Fuller quotes the great Harvard Constitutional Law scholar as saying the Supreme Court “pulled a brodie” in Erie. This article reviews Erie from the perspective of commercial law, rather than the public law commentary that has dominated discussion of the Erie doctrine since its birth, seeking to understand the depth of contempt for Erie among commercial lawyers in terms of its consequences, reasoning, and jurisprudential approach.

Read at SSRN.

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Financial Regulation & Corporate Governance

Why Challenges To FTC Authority Are Needed

Popular Media Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. filed suit against the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Nov. 29, . . .

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. filed suit against the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Nov. 29, alleging the FTC’s administrative proceedings against the company are “structurally unconstitutional,” and that they violate the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the Seventh Amendment’s right to trial by jury, and Articles I and III of the U.S. Constitution.

The suit — which also names Commissioners Lina Khan, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya — raises complex issues of constitutional and administrative law.

In brief, it’s about the limits of agency authority and, not incidentally, what authority Congress can properly delegate to federal agencies. It is also, at least arguably, an expression of backlash to regulatory overreach.

Such a backlash seemed increasingly likely, if not inevitable, given the FTC’s recent blitz of activity in the tech sector. That includes not just enforcement matters but an ambitious regulatory agenda.

Read the full piece here.

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection

Oncology Drives Most Recent Accelerated Approvals

TOTM In my most recent post on medicine approvals I explored how the HIV/AIDS crisis drove a reevaluation of what was truly essential to demonstrate a new drug’s . . .

In my most recent post on medicine approvals I explored how the HIV/AIDS crisis drove a reevaluation of what was truly essential to demonstrate a new drug’s efficacy. Allowing HIV patients to take investigational treatments meant that research into rarer conditions—which previously would never have been profitable—might now be financially worthwhile.

This post estimates the benefits of accelerated approval and how oncology medicines have become the treatment category with the most accelerated approvals.

Read the full piece here.

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Innovation & the New Economy

Where Are the New FTC Rules?

TOTM Perhaps more than at any time in its history, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under Chair Lina Khan has highlighted substantive rulemaking as a central . . .

Perhaps more than at any time in its history, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under Chair Lina Khan has highlighted substantive rulemaking as a central element of its policy agenda. But despite a great deal of rule-related sound and fury (signifying nothing?), new final rules have yet to emerge, and do not appear imminent. This post explores some possible “whys and wherefores” that may help explain this seemingly peculiar state of affairs, and the policy implications of the commission’s recent rulemaking activity.

Read the full piece here.

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Antitrust & Consumer Protection