Kristian Stout on FTC’s antitrust case against Qualcomm
Communications Daily – ICLE Director of Innovation Policy Kristian Stout was quoted by Communications Daily in a story about the Federal Trade Commission’s decision not to seek U.S. Supreme Court review of its antitrust case against Qualcomm. The full story is available (behind a subscriber firewall) here.
Acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter signaled in her announcement that the FTC had a weak case from the start, said International Center for Law & Economics Innovation Policy Director Kristian Stout, whose organization filed in support of Qualcomm. “If there were in fact problems with the way Qualcomm behaved, every aspect of it sounded to me like at most a contract violation that should have been resolved in a civil suit,” he wrote. “The antitrust theories they tried to advance were speculative.” The trend seems to be enforcers bringing cases for the sake of bringing cases, he said.