June 14, 2018

For LabMD, the Devil is in the Not-So-Well Specified Details

Geoffrey A. Manne & Gus Hurwitz & Kristian Stout

The Eleventh Circuit’s LabMD opinion came out last week and has been something of a rorschach test for those of us who study consumer protection law. Neil Chilson found the result to be a disturbing sign of slippage in Congress’s command that the FTC refrain from basing enforcement on “public policy.” Berin Szóka, on the other hand, saw the ruling as a long-awaited rebuke against the FTC’s expansive notion of its “unfairness” authority.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

March 22, 2017

Understanding ownership and property in the Digital Age

Geoffrey A. Manne & Neil Turkewitz

What does it mean to “own” something? A simple question (with a complicated answer, of course) that, astonishingly, goes unasked in a recent article in the Pennsylvania Law Review entitled,…

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

January 3, 2017

Amicus Brief, LabMD Inc., v. FTC, 11th Circuit

Geoffrey A. Manne & Kristian Stout & Berin Szoka

Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45 [“Section 5”], is a consumer protection statute, not a data security rule...This fundamental point has been lost in the Commission’s approach to data security.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

October 21, 2016

FCC Chairman Wheeler’s claimed fealty to FTC privacy standards is belied by the rules he actually proposes

Geoffrey A. Manne

Next week the FCC is slated to vote on the second iteration of Chairman Wheeler’s proposed broadband privacy rules. Of course, as has become all too common, none of us…

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

June 14, 2016

Senator Lee’s prescription for regulatory failure in the generic drug market

Geoffrey A. Manne

Brand drug manufacturers are no strangers to antitrust accusations when it comes to their complicated relationship with generic competitors — most obviously with respect to reverse payment settlements. But the…

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

May 26, 2016

Congressional testimony on legislative reform proposals for the FTC

Geoffrey A. Manne

Earlier this week I testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade regarding several proposed FTC reform bills. You can find my written testimony here. That testimony…

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

May 1, 2016

Testimony, Legislative Hearing on 17 FTC Bills, House Committee on Energy and Commerce

Geoffrey A. Manne & Berin Szoka

"Congressional reauthorization of the FTC is long overdue. It has been twenty-two years since Congress last gave the FTC a significant course-correction and even that one, codifying the heart of the FTC’s 1980 Unfairness Policy Statement, has not had the effect Congress expected..."

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

May 1, 2016

Restoring Congressional Oversight of the Second National Legislature

Geoffrey A. Manne & Berin Szoka

Congressional reauthorization of the FTC is long overdue. It has been twenty-two years since Congress last gave the FTC a significant course-correction and even that one, codifying the heart of the FTC’s 1980 Unfairness Policy Statement, has not had the effect Congress expected.

Antitrust & Consumer Protection

April 27, 2016

FTC v Amazon: With every victory in court the FTC loses a little more

Geoffrey A. Manne

Yesterday a federal district court in Washington state granted the FTC’s motion for summary judgment against Amazon in FTC v. Amazon — the case alleging unfair trade practices in Amazon’s design of the…

Antitrust & Consumer Protection