The “magic” of Washington can only go so far. Whether it is political consultants trying to create controversy where there is basic consensus, such as in parts of the political campaign, or the earnest effort to create a controversy over the Apple decision, there may be lots of words exchanged and animated discussion by political and antitrust pundits, but at the end of the day it’s much ado about not much. For the Apple case, even though this blog has attracted some of the keenest creative antitrust thinkers, a simple truth remains – there was overwhelming evidence that there was a horizontal agreement among suppliers and that Apple participated or even led the agreement as a seller. This is, by definition, a hub-and-spoke conspiracy that resulted in horizontal price fixing among ebook suppliers – an activity worthy of per se treatment.

Read the full piece here.

There is always a temptation for antitrust agencies and plaintiffs to center a case around so-called “hot” documents — typically company documents with a snippet or sound-bites extracted, some times out of context. Some practitioners argue that “[h]ot document can be crucial to the outcome of any antitrust matter.” Although “hot” documents can help catch the interest of the public, a busy judge or an unsophisticated jury, they often can lead to misleading results. But more times than not, antitrust cases are resolved on economics and what John Adams called “hard facts,” not snippets from emails or other corporate documents. Antitrust case books are littered with cases that initially looked promising based on some supposed hot documents, but ultimately failed because the foundations of a sound antitrust case were missing.

Read the full piece here.

Acentury ago Congress enacted the Clayton Act, which prohibits acquisitions that may substantially lessen competition. For years, the antitrust enforcement Agencies looked at only one part of the ledger – the potential for price increases. Agencies didn’t take into account the potential efficiencies in cost savings, better products, services, and innovation. One of the major reforms of the Clinton Administration was to fully incorporate efficiencies in merger analysis, helping to develop sound enforcement standards for the 21st Century.

Read the full piece here.

There is a consensus in America that we need to control health care costs and improve the delivery of health care. After a long debate on health care reform and careful scrutiny of health care markets, there seems to be agreement that the unintegrated, “siloed approach” to health care is inefficient, costly, and contrary to the goal of improving care. But some antitrust enforcers — most notably the FTC — are standing in the way.

Read the full piece here.

Aparticularly unsettling aspect of the FTC’s case against McWane is the complaint counsel’s heavy (and seemingly exclusive) reliance on structural factors to prove its case. The FTC has little or no direct evidence of price communications and no econometric evidence suggesting collusion, and has instead spent a good deal of time trying to show that the market is susceptible to collusion. What makes the FTC’s administrative case so unsettling is that the structural factors they rely on are true of any oligopoly and, in federal courts across the country, are insufficient as a matter of law to raise an inference of conspiracy.

Read the full piece here.

Two modest offices on the first floor of the FTC building are occupied by the FTC Administrative Law Judge and his staff.  Of all of the agencies with an ALJ, the FTC’s operation must be the smallest.  The ALJ handles only a handful of trials each year.  In the past, the FTC ALJ operation has gathered little to no attention.  But in recent years, with renewed focus on administrative litigation and tight litigation deadlines, FTC administrative litigation has become a rocket docket of sorts.

Read the full piece here.

Anyone familiar with the antitrust newstream realizes there is a tremendous amount of controversy about the Federal Trade Commission’s administrative litigation process. Unlike the Antitrust Division which fights its litigation battles in Federal Court, the FTC has a distinct home court advantage. FTC antitrust cases are typically litigated administratively with a trial conducted before an FTC administrative law judge, who issues an initial decision, followed with an appeal to the full Commission for a final decision. I have authored a couple of recent articles as have others that question the fairness of the FTC acting as both prosecutor and judge. These concerns have only been amplified since for the last 19 years the FTC has always found a violation of law. As one Congressman noted the FTC has “an unbeaten streak that Perry Mason would envy.”

Read the full piece here.

One must applaud the efforts of Commissioners Ohlhausen and Wright to begin the dialogue about the proper use of Section 5 as a tool of antitrust enforcement. It was 99 years ago that Congress was debating the creation of the Federal Trade Commission and increased guidance on the Commission’s thinking on Section 5 is in order.

Read the full piece here.

I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on the current Section 5 discussion and add a few modest thoughts about the very thoughtful speeches of Commissioners Wright and Ohlhausen. I must admit, that as a former FTC Policy dude my mouth salivates at the thought of any new Guidelines. After all what could be more fun that coming out with thought pieces, speeches, commentaries, drafts, revised drafts, reply drafts, and more drafts. What could be more enjoyable than spending hundreds of hours parsing through every word to debate and detect every nuance. And then providing a document that is both sufficiently flexible and informative that it can live and adjust to changing circumstances – that sounds like fun. Why this sounds like an effort that would make any Talmudic debate sound like a simple task.

Read the full piece here.