These days, there isn’t a lot of harmony in the world of technology policy. But there is a bright spot of bipartisanship in a section of our airwaves: the 5.9 GHz band. In 2020, the FCC voted unanimously to modernize the rules in this spectrum to allow both Wi-Fi and automotive safety tech to operate. This win-win was celebrated by proponents of car safety and broadband alike. But today the Department of Transportation (DOT) is working on a study that may purposely have been designed to undo this decision. At a time when broadband is more important than ever, we should not undo this popular and bipartisan policy.

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Abstract

Between 2016 and 2019, two proposed mergers captured much of the attention and resources of the Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (DOJ). The first was the vertical merger of AT&T Inc. and Time Warner Inc.—a merger of a communications, media, and content distribution company (AT&T) with a content provider (Time Warner). The second was the horizontal merger of Sprint and T-Mobile—a merger of two mobile telephone companies. In general, vertical mergers are reviewed with greater leniency than horizontal mergers because the latter, by definition, eliminate a competitor in the relevant marketplace, which is not a concern with the former. Moreover, merger-specific efficiencies may be easier to demonstrate when a company merges with another company in its own supply chain. Even so, the DOJ challenged the vertical merger of AT&T and Time Warner but permitted (with conditions) the horizontal merger of Sprint and T-Mobile. As this Article sets forth, these seemingly distinct mergers were destined to be linked.

Even though the DOJ unsuccessfully blocked the AT&T-Time Warner merger, the companies are separating again only a few short years after finalizing their merger. The stated reason for the unwinding is arguably linked to the DOJ’s decision to permit the Sprint-T-Mobile merger. The competitive pressure created by the joined mobile telephone company—T-Mobile—has pressured AT&T to invest further in its own mobile telephone business. In other words, the DOJ’s initial fear, that the merged AT&T could use theoretical market power to anticompetitively charge higher consumer prices and raise rivals’ costs in content distribution, was never realized. In contrast, the DOJ’s humility in assessing potential efficiencies for a merged T-Mobile in the growing 5G mobile telephone market is already paying competitive dividends. The tale of these two mergers, therefore, provides interesting insights into modern merger review policies.

Abstract

This paper looks at consumer complaints about student loan lenders and servicers from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) consumer complaint database. Using a novel dataset drawn from 30,678 complaints filed against 212 student loan companies, we analyze consumers’ subjective views about whether traditional or fintech student loan lenders and servicers provide a better customer experience. Overall, we find that consumers initiate far fewer complaints against fintech lenders than traditional lenders. But we find that fintech lenders are twenty-eight times more likely than traditional lenders to receive complaints for making confusing or misleading advertisements. Our data also show that complaints against fintech lenders or servicers have not risen in parallel with greater loan volume by those firms, despite the rising number of complaints being filed against traditional lenders and servicers, as those firms continue to dominate the market share of student loan lending and servicing. We consider various reasons for this difference, including whether this means fintech student loan companies are providing a better consumer experience.

Abstract

We propose bolstering the OPT program rather than undermining the United States’ edge in the global race for talent. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), within its statutory authority, should introduce the following reforms to the OPT program:

Increase eligible years of work for non–science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (non-STEM) graduates on OPT from one year to three years. Remove employer sponsorship requirements. Allow foreign graduates to work in industries unrelated to their field of study. Eliminate minimum-working-hour requirements for employment authorization. Streamline the I-765 issuance process to ensure that foreign graduates can obtain Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) within three months or less. Exempt OPT participants from the H-1B lottery process if they have acquired at least one year of work experience.

This brief will summarize extant evidence to support this proposal.

For obvious reasons, many scholars, lawyers, and policymakers are thinking hard about whether the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has authority to promulgate substantive “unfair methods of competition” (UMC) regulations. I first approached this issue a couple of years ago when the FTC asked me to present on the agency’s rulemaking powers. For my presentation, I focused on 1973’s National Petroleum Refiners Association v. FTC and, in particular, whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit correctly held that the FTC has authority to promulgate such rules. I ventured that relying on National Petroleum Refiners would present “litigation risk” for the FTC because the method of statutory interpretation used by the D.C. Circuit is out of step with how courts read statutes today. Richard Pierce, who presented at the same event, was even more blunt…

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Abstract

Early in his career, Milton Friedman proposed a coordinated rules-based approach to monetary and fiscal policy, which he then abandoned for a simple constant money growth rule. Both rules were motivated by his goal of long-run economic stability and his belief that discretionary policy would be destabilizing. What prompted Friedman to change his view was his interpretation of empirical evidence showing that monetary policy dominates fiscal policy in determining macroeconomic outcomes, rendering fiscal policy ineffective.

ICLE Editor-in-Chief R.J. Lehmann joined the Heard Tell Show to discuss Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, shareholder rights, platform moderation, and regulatory review of the transaction. The full episode is embedded below.

The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) current leadership appears likely to issue substantive rules concerning “unfair methods of competition” (UMC) at some point. FTC Chair Lina Khan, in an article with former FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra, argued that the commission has the authority to issue UMC rules pursuant to the Federal Trade Commission Act based on Petroleum Refiners Association v. FTC and a subsequently enacted provision in 1975. But Petroleum Refiners is a nearly 50-year-old, untested, and heavily criticized opinion that predates the major questions doctrine and widespread adoption of textualism in the courts. Application of the major questions doctrine and modern, textualist methods of statutory interpretation almost certainly would lead to a determination that the commission lacks UMC rulemaking authority.

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In 1972, a case came before Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr., a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, involving the scope of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) regulatory authority. Section 5(a)(1) of the Federal Trade Commission Act outlaws “unfair methods of competition.” Section 6(g) says that the FTC may “make rules and regulations for the purposes of carrying out” the FTC Act.

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