August 16, 2018

Lowering the Barriers to Entry to the Common Ownership Debate

Thomas Lambert

One of the hottest topics in antitrust these days is institutional investors’ common ownership of the stock of competing firms. Large investment companies like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and Fidelity offer index…

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

August 10, 2018

Senator Warner’s proposals could harm entrepreneurs and consumers

Kristian Stout

Last week, I objected to Senator Warner relying on the flawed AOL/Time Warner merger conditions as a template for tech regulatory policy, but there is a much deeper problem contained in his proposals.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

July 31, 2018

EU engaged in antitrust gerrymandering against Google

Nicolas Petit

With its $5 billion fine against Google, the European Commission (EC) just applied to the search giant an old U.S. political trick: gerrymandering; the idea that if antitrust watchdogs draw markets narrowly enough, every company can be made to look like an evil monopolist.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

July 30, 2018

AOL/Time Warner merger conditions are a template for disastrous tech policy

Kristian Stout

Senator Mark Warner has proposed 20 policy prescriptions for bringing “big tech” to heel. The proposals — which run the gamut from policing foreign advertising on social networks to regulating feared competitive harms — provide much interesting material for Congress to consider.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

July 27, 2018

How blockchain will upend competition law

Thibault Schrepel

PARIS — Not a day goes by without some discussion of Bitcoin — and, by extension, blockchain. Soon, not a day will pass without blockchain being discussed in competition law…

Financial Regulation

July 23, 2018

The European Commission’s ahistorical view of the smartphone market

Julian Morris

What to make of the decision by the European Commission alleging that Google has engaged in anticompetitive behavior? In this post, Julian Morris contrasts the European Commission’s (EC) approach to competition policy with US antitrust, briefly explores the history of smartphones and discusses the ruling.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

July 19, 2018

WILL THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION'S GOOGLE ANDROID DECISION BENEFIT CONSUMERS?

Pinar Akman

The European Commission’s decision in Google Android cuts a fine line between punishing a company for its success and punishing a company for falling afoul of the rules of the game. Which side of the line it actually falls on cannot be fully understood until the Commission publishes its full decision.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

July 18, 2018

WHY THE COMMISSION'S GOOGLE ANDROID DECISION HARMS COMPETITION

Dirk Auer

Today’s Google Android decision could severely harm competition and innovation in the digital economy. It ignores the powerful rivalry that exists between Android devices and Apple’s iPhone. To compete against Apple, Google opted for an open-source project which entails a complex governance structure. By meddling with these rules, the Commission’s decision threatens the viability of the Android platform. Consumers will be the biggest losers.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

July 18, 2018

THE EU’S GOOGLE ANDROID ANTITRUST DECISION FALLS PREY TO THE NIRVANA FALLACY

Geoffrey A. Manne

It is sometimes said that the most important question in all of economics is “compared to what?” UCLA economist Harold Demsetz — one of the most important regulatory economists of the past century — coined the term “nirvana fallacy” to critique would-be regulators’ tendency to compare messy, real-world economic circumstances to idealized alternatives, and to justify policies on the basis of the discrepancy between them. Wishful thinking, in other words.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection