August 28, 2018

Amazon and Whole Foods, Historically Considered [Amazon-Whole Foods Symposium]

Steve Horwitz

Steve Horwitz is the Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise, Department of Economics, at Ball State University.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

August 27, 2018

Blog Symposium Announcement: Is Amazon’s Appetite Bottomless? The Whole Foods Merger After One Year

icle

One year ago tomorrow the Amazon/Whole Foods merger closed, following its approval by the FTC. The merger was something of a flashpoint in the growing populist antitrust movement, raising some interesting questions — and a host of objections from a number of scholars, advocates, journalists, antitrust experts, and others who voiced a range of possible problematic outcomes.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

August 20, 2018

The Rise of Neo-Brandeisian Competition Policy and the Threat to Evidence-Based Regulation: (FTC Hearings, ICLE Comment 1)

Geoffrey A. Manne & Julian Morris & Gus Hurwitz & Kristian Stout

FTC Hearings on Competition & Consumer Protection in the 21st Century. Comments of the International Center for Law & Economics: The Rise of Neo-Brandeisian Competition Policy: Populism and Political Power and the Threat to Economically Grounded, Evidence-Based. Competition Law and Consumer Protection Regulation. Submitted August 20, 2018.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

August 20, 2018

Lambert & Sykuta Comment to FTC on Common Ownership

Thomas Lambert

The Federal Trade Commission will soon hold hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century.  The topics to be considered include...

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

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