Search Results

Aparticularly unsettling aspect of the FTC’s case against McWane is the complaint counsel’s heavy (and seemingly exclusive) reliance on structural factors to prove its case. The FTC has little or no direct evidence of price communications and no econometric evidence suggesting collusion, and has instead spent a good deal of time trying to show that the market is susceptible to collusion. What makes the FTC’s administrative case so unsettling is that the structural factors they rely on are true of any oligopoly and, in federal courts across the country, are insufficient as a matter of law to raise an inference of conspiracy.

Read the full piece here.

Two modest offices on the first floor of the FTC building are occupied by the FTC Administrative Law Judge and his staff.  Of all of the agencies with an ALJ, the FTC’s operation must be the smallest.  The ALJ handles only a handful of trials each year.  In the past, the FTC ALJ operation has gathered little to no attention.  But in recent years, with renewed focus on administrative litigation and tight litigation deadlines, FTC administrative litigation has become a rocket docket of sorts.

Read the full piece here.

Anyone familiar with the antitrust newstream realizes there is a tremendous amount of controversy about the Federal Trade Commission’s administrative litigation process. Unlike the Antitrust Division which fights its litigation battles in Federal Court, the FTC has a distinct home court advantage. FTC antitrust cases are typically litigated administratively with a trial conducted before an FTC administrative law judge, who issues an initial decision, followed with an appeal to the full Commission for a final decision. I have authored a couple of recent articles as have others that question the fairness of the FTC acting as both prosecutor and judge. These concerns have only been amplified since for the last 19 years the FTC has always found a violation of law. As one Congressman noted the FTC has “an unbeaten streak that Perry Mason would envy.”

Read the full piece here.

Summary

“STELA (and its predecessors) as well as the Cable Act were written to promote competition and to protect consumers in nascent markets. But since their enactment the market has
fundamentally changed, becoming quite competitive. Rather than continuing to try to tweak the laws of a bygone era, Congress should abandon these disparately applied, technology specific regulations and embrace the default tool for dealing with market power across the economy: antitrust law. Antitrust is the best tool for policing market power in evolving (if not
perfectly competitive) markets, to ensure that distributors with market power do not use their power to harm consumers, while recognizing the benefits that come from experimentation in new technologies and business models for delivering video content to consumers…”

Summary

Armen Alchian was one of the great economists of the twentieth century, and his 1950 paper, Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory, one of the most important contributions to the economic literature. Anticipating modern behavioral economics, Alchian explains that firms most decidedly do not – cannot – actually operate as rational profit maximizers. Nevertheless, economists can make useful predictions even in a world of uncertainty and incomplete information because market environments “adopt” those firms that best fit their environments, permitting them to be modeled as if they behave rationally. This insight has important and under-appreciated implications for the debate today over the usefulness of behavioral economics.

Alchian’s explanation of the role of market forces in shaping outcomes poses a serious challenge to behavioralists’ claims. While Alchian’s (and our) conclusions are born out of the same realization that uncertainty pervades economic decision making that preoccupies the behavioralists, his work suggests a very different conclusion: The evolutionary pressures identified by Alchian may have led to seemingly inefficient firms and other institutions that, in actuality, constrain the effects of bias by market participants. In other words, the very “defects” of profitable firms – from conservatism to excessive bureaucracy to agency costs – may actually support their relative efficiency and effectiveness, even if they appear problematic, costly or inefficient. In fact, their very persistence argues strongly for that conclusion.

In Part I, we offer a short summary of Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory. In Part II, we explain the implications of Alchian’s paper for behavioral economics. Part III looks at some findings from experimental economics, and the banking industry in particular, to demonstrate how biases are constrained by firms and other institutions – in ways often misunderstood by behavioral economists. In Part IV, we consider what Alchian’s model means for government regulation (with special emphasis on antitrust and consumer protection regulation).

Gus Hurwitz is Assistant Professor of Law at University of Nebraska College of Law

Administrative law really is a strange beast. My last post explained this a bit, in the context of Chevron. In this post, I want to make this point in another context, explaining how utterly useless a policy statement can be. Our discussion today has focused on what should go into a policy statement – there seems to be general consensus that one is a good idea. But I’m not sure that we have a good understanding of how little certainty a policy statement offers.

Administrative Stare Decisis?

I alluded in my previous post to the absence of stare decisis in the administrative context. This is one of the greatest differences between judicial and administrative rulemaking: agencies are not bound by either prior judicial interpretations of their statutes, or even by their own prior interpretations. These conclusions follow from relatively recent opinions – Brand-X in 2005 and Fox I in 2007 – and have broad implications for the relationship between courts and agencies.

In Brand-X, the Court explained that a “court’s prior judicial construction of a statute trumps an agency construction otherwise entitled to Chevron deference only if the prior court decision holds that its construction follows from the unambiguous terms of the statute and thus leaves no room for agency discretion.” This conclusion follows from a direct application of Chevron: courts are responsible for determining whether a statute is ambiguous; agencies are responsible for determining the (reasonable) meaning of a statute that is ambiguous.

Not only are agencies not bound by a court’s prior interpretations of an ambiguous statute – they’re not even bound by their own prior interpretations!

In Fox I, the Court held that an agency’s own interpretation of an ambiguous statute impose no special obligations should the agency subsequently change its interpretation.[1] It may be necessary to acknowledge the prior policy; and factual findings upon which the new policy is based that contradict findings upon which the prior policy was based may need to be explained.[2] But where a statute may be interpreted in multiple ways – that is, in any case where the statute is ambiguous – Congress, and by extension its agencies, is free to choose between those alternative interpretations. The fact that an agency previously adopted one interpretation does not necessarily render other possible interpretations any less reasonable; the mere fact that one was previously adopted therefore, on its own, cannot act as a bar to subsequent adoption of a competing interpretation.

What Does This Mean for Policy Statements?

In a contentious policy environment – that is, one where the prevailing understanding of an ambiguous law changes with the consensus of a three-Commissioner majority – policy statements are worth next to nothing. Generally, the value of a policy statement is explaining to a court the agency’s rationale for its preferred construction of an ambiguous statute. Absent such an explanation, a court is likely to find that the construction was not sufficiently reasoned to merit deference. That is: a policy statement makes it easier for an agency to assert a given construction of a statute in litigation.

But a policy statement isn’t necessary to make that assertion, or for an agency to receive deference. Absent a policy statement, the agency needs to demonstrate to the court that its interpretation of the statute is sufficiently reasoned (and not merely a strategic interpretation adopted for the purposes of the present litigation).

And, more important, a policy statement in no way prevents an agency from changing its interpretation. Fox I makes clear that an agency is free to change its interpretations of a given statute. Prior interpretations – including prior policy statements – are not a bar to such changes. Prior interpretations also, therefore, offer little assurance to parties subject to any given interpretation.

Are Policy Statements entirely Useless?

Policy statements may not be entirely useless. The likely front on which to challenge an unexpected change agency interpretation of its statute is on Due Process or Notice grounds. The existence of a policy statement may make it easier for a party to argue that a changed interpretation runs afoul of Due Process or Notice requirements. See, e.g., Fox II.

So there is some hope that a policy statement would be useful. But, in the context of Section 5 UMC claims, I’m not sure how much comfort this really affords. Regulatory takings jurisprudence gives agencies broad power to seemingly-contravene Due Process and Notice expectations. This is largely because of the nature of relief available to the FTC: injunctive relief, such as barring certain business practices, even if it results in real economic losses, is likely to survive a regulatory takings challenge, and therefore also a Due Process challenge.  Generally, the Due Process and Notice lines of argument are best suited against fines and similar retrospective remedies; they offer little comfort against prospective remedies like injunctions.

Conclusion

I’ll conclude the same way that I did my previous post, with what I believe is the most important takeaway from this post: however we proceed, we must do so with an understanding of both antitrust and administrative law. Administrative law is the unique, beautiful, and scary beast that governs the FTC – those who fail to respect its nuances do so at their own peril.

Filed under: antitrust, federal trade commission, section 5, UMC symposium Tagged: Chevron, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc., Congress, Due Process, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, ftc, United States Congress

Gus Hurwitz is Assistant Professor of Law at University of Nebraska College of Law

Introduction

This post is based upon an in-progress article that explores the applicability of Chevron deference to FTC interpretations of Section 5’s proscription of unfair methods of competition. ( I am happy to circulate a draft of this article to anyone who would like to offer substantive feedback.) The article is prompted by the near-universal belief in the antitrust bar – held by both academics and practitioners – that the FTC is not entitled to Chevron deference.

In my limited space here, I hope to do three things. First, since many readers may not be familiar with Chevron deference, I explain very briefly what it is. Second, I explain why Chevron deference is relevant to Section 5 and to UMC in particular. And third, I debunk three of the most pervasive myths about why the FTC would not receive Chevron deference.

Regardless one’s priors, understanding the relationship between Section 5 and Chevron is essential to understanding the future of FTC-based competition policy. The past 30 years of competition policy debates have addressed the courts as its main audience. The new front – which neither the antitrust hawks or doves has significant experience with – is administrative. Administrative law is very different from the judicially-defined, stare decisis–restrained, common-law venue in which we are all used to playing.

Chevron

Chevron deference is used where a statute enforced by an administrative agency involves an ambiguous legal standard. In such cases, it is unclear whether such ambiguity should be resolved by the courts or by the agency. In its 1984 Chevron opinion, the Court made clear – for various reasons that are hotly debated to this day – that courts should defer to agency interpretations of such ambiguous statutes, provided that the interpretation is permissible within the language of the statute.

It is requisite that any discussion of Chevron cite to the opinion’s famous language:

First, always, is the question whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress. If, however, the court determines Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at issue, the court does not simply impose its own construction on the statute, as would be necessary in the absence of an administrative interpretation. Rather, if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute. Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 467 U.S. 837, 842-43 (1984)

This standard is important to the FTC because Section 5 was deliberately designed to be an ambiguous statute (this is made clear in the legislative history, and has been affirmed consistently by the Court). In the context of UMC, each of “unfair,” “method,” and “competition” bears some modicum of ambiguity – “unfair,” in particular drips with it.

Chevron’s relevance to Section 5

This ambiguity has not been an issue for the past 30 years or so, because the FTC has restrained itself to an interpretation of UMC that is concurrent with the judicially-defined antitrust laws (viz., the Sherman and Clayton Acts). But as the fact of this symposium reflects, recent years have seen increasing pressure for the FTC to embrace a more expansive understanding of its UMC authority under Section 5.

What happens when it does this? What happens, for example, when the FTC asserts that “unfair” embraces more than mere aggregate consumer welfare, but extends to distributional effects as well. There is a not-insane argument that some decreases in total welfare is an acceptable cost to secure greater distributional “fairness.” If the courts afford the Commission Chevron deference, the answer is simple: the Commission wins.

Debunking the myth that Chevron does not apply to Section 5

There is a pervasive belief that Chevron does not apply to Section 5. As a result, antitrust scholarship has largely addressed the courts as its audience, framing debates about Section 5 in the same language and theory as has been embraced by the courts in the context of the Sherman Act. That is, discussions have largely been framed in post-Antitrust Paradox consumer welfare understandings of antitrust law.

This view was clear in the FTC’s 2008 workshop on Section 5 of the FTC Act as a Competition Statute. It has also been captured extensively in Dan Crane’s wonderful work on the FTC as an institution. Anecdotally, as I have wondered about this issue over the past several years, I have encountered many antitrust scholars and practitioners who have assured me that Chevron does not apply to Section 5; and I have encountered none who have believed that it does.

A number of reasons have been offered to explain why Chevron does not apply to Section 5. In the remained of this post, I will debunk the three most pervasive explanations offered for this: that the FTC doesn’t have substantive rulemaking authority, that deference doesn’t apply to statutes that are enforced by multiple agencies (e.g., the FTC and DOJ both enforcing the antitrust laws), and that Indiana Federation of Dentists, 476 U.S. 447 (1986) (the Court’s most recent Section 5 UMC case), provides that Section 5 UMC cases are reviewed de novo by the courts.

Myth #1: FTC doesn’t have rulemaking authority

It is widely believed that the FTC doesn’t have substantive UMC rulemaking authority; and folks seem to think that such authority is required for an agency to get Chevron deference. Both of these are beliefs are wrong.

The confusion over the extent of the FTC’s rulemaking authority is somewhat understandable – it has been the subject of much controversy and judicial and Congressional debate for much of the Commission’s existence. This debate has been especially muddled by Congress’s disparate treatment of UMC and UDAP (unfair or deceptive act or practices – a separate offence proscribed by Section 5).

But there really is no question that the FTC has substantive UMC rulemaking authority under Section 6(g). The Supreme Court held so much in National Petroleum Refiners, 482 F.2d 672 (1973) – one of the seminal cases in the administrative law canon. While the FTC Act has been amended several times since National Petroleum Refiners (most notably in 1975, 1980, and 1994), and the Commissions UDAP rulemaking power has been an explicit focus of several of these amendments, none of them has affected the Commission’s UMC rulemaking authority. To the contrary, the amendments and related legislative history expressly preserve the Commission’s UMC rulemaking authority as it existed in 1973.

(The 1975 amendments notes that “The preceding sentence shall not affect any authority of the commission to prescribe rules (including interpretive rules), and general statements of policy, with respect to unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce.” The 1980 Conference report notes that the 1975 amendments “specifically addressed the Commission’s rulemaking authority over ‘unfair or deceptive acts or practices,” and that they expressly declaimed any effect on the Commission’s authority with respect to unfair methods of competition. And the 1994 amendments focused exclusively on unfair acts or practices – omitting both deceptive acts or practices and unfair methods of competition.)

What’s more, substantive rulemaking authority is not the necessary condition for Chevron deference to apply. The necessary condition is that the agency be able to make rules or establish legal norms carrying the force of law. Such rules can be made either through rulemaking or adjudication (and possibly even through other Congressionally-intended mechanisms). See Mead, 533 U.S. 218, 234-35 (2001). There is little, if any, serious question that the FTC was created precisely for this purpose and, to this day, has such power.

Myth #2: Concurrent antitrust jurisdiction means no deference

A second common explanation for why the FTC does not receive the benefit of Chevron deference is that such deference does not extend to statutes enforced by multiple agencies, and that the antitrust laws are enforced by both the DOJ and FTC. Again, this is a misunderstanding of both FTC and administrative law.

On the administrative law front, the question of how concurrent jurisdiction affects deference is handled as a threshold question to be answered by Congressional intent. (For the admin-law geeks among us, this is a step-zero question.) It is possible that Congress intended either, neither, or both agencies with concurrent jurisdiction to be given deference. Whatever Congress intended, is what controls – not a mythical rule that concurrent jurisdiction negates deference.

But this explanation suffers a more basic flaw: the only reason that the FTC and DOJ have concurrent jurisdiction over the antitrust laws is because the FTC has interpreted Section 5 to be concurrent with the antitrust laws enforced by the DOJ. Section 5 (and the FTC itself) was created precisely to be broader than the antitrust laws – and nothing in Section 5 even references the “antitrust laws.” Section 5 may be coextensive with the DOJ-enforced antitrust laws – but only because it encompasses and is broader than them. The FTC does not share jurisdiction over that part of Section 5 that is broader than those laws that the DOJ enforces.

Myth #3: Indiana Federation of Dentists holds Section 5 UMC cases are reviewed de novo

The final myth that I will consider is that Indiana Federation of Dentists requires courts to conduct de novo review of FTC legal determinations under Section 5. This explanation really is quite fascinating as a demonstration of how myths can propagate through the bar – and the importance of interfacing with experts from other specialty areas of the law.

The typically-cited passage from Indiana Federation of Dentists explains that:

The legal issues presented — that is, the identification of governing legal standards and their application to the facts found — are, by contrast, for the courts to resolve, although even in considering such issues the courts are to give some deference to the Commission’s informed judgment that a particular commercial practice is to be condemned as “unfair.”

This language has been cited as requiring do novo review of all legal questions, including the legal meaning of Section 5. Dan Crane has called this an “odd standard,” noting that ordinarily “this is technically a question of Chevron deference, although the courts have not articulated it that way in the antitrust space.” Indeed, it seems remarkable that Indiana Federation of Dentists (decided in 1986) does not even mention Chevron (decided in 1984) – a fact that has led antitrust commentators to believe “One cannot explain judicial posture in the antitrust arena in Chevron terms.”

But this is a misreading of Indiana Federation of Dentists, which is in fact entirely in line with Chevron; and it is a misunderstanding of Chevron’s history. First, it is unsurprising that Indiana Federation of Dentists did not cite to Chevron. The Indiana Federation of Dentists petitioned for cert from a 7^th Circuit that had been argued before Chevron was decided, and the Commission was arguing for an uncontroversial interpretation of Section 5 as applying Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The Commission had never structured its case to seek deference, and before the Supreme Court it had no need to argue for any deference.

Moreover, it took several years for the importance of Chevron to become understood, and to filter its way into judicial review of agency statutory interpretation. Over the next several years, the Circuit Courts regularly used Indiana Federation of Dentists to explain the standard of review for various agencies’ interpretations of their organic statutes (including, e.g., HHS, INS Labor, and OSHA). Importantly, these cases recognized that there was some confusion as to the changing standard of review; framed their analysis in terms of Skidmore (the precursor Chevron in this line of cases); and largely reached Chevron-like conclusions, despite Indiana Federation of Dentists’s suggestion of a lower level of deference. Today, Chevron, not Indiana Federation of Dentists, is the law of the land – at least, for every regulatory agency other than the FTC.

Indeed, a close reading of Indiana Federation of Dentists finds that it is in accord with Chevron. The continuation of the paragraph quoted above explains that:

The standard of “unfairness” under the FTC Act is, by necessity, an elusive one, encompassing not only practices that violate the Sherman Act and the other antitrust laws, but also practices that the Commission determines are against public policy for other reasons. Once the Commission has chosen a particular legal rationale for holding a practice to be unfair, however, familiar principles of administrative law dictate that its decision must stand or fall on that basis, and a reviewing court may not consider other reasons why the practice might be deemed unfair. In the case now before us, the sole basis of the FTC’s finding of an unfair method of competition was the Commission’s conclusion that the [alleged conduct] was an unreasonable and conspiratorial restraint of trade in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. Accordingly, the legal question before us is whether the Commission’s factual findings, if supported by evidence, make out a violation of Sherman Act § 1. (emphasis added)

This language critically alters the paragraph’s initial proposition that the legal issues are for determination by the courts. Rather, the Court recognizes that Section 5 is inherently ambiguous. It is therefore to the Commission to choose the legal standard under which that conduct will be reviewed – “a reviewing court may not consider other reasons why the practice might be deemed unfair.”

This is precisely the standard established by Chevron: first, the courts determine whether the statute is ambiguous and, if it is not, the court’s reading of the statute is binding; but if it is ambiguous, the court defers to the agency’s construction. Part of why Chevron is a difficult test is that both parts of this analysis do, in fact, present legal questions for the court. The first step is purely legal, with the court determining on its own whether the statute is ambiguous. Then, at step two, the legal question is whether the agency correctly applied the facts to its declared legal standard – as the Court recognizes in Indiana Federation of Dentists, “the legal question before us is whether the Commission’s factual findings make out a violation of Sherman Act § 1.” Thus, the opening, oft-quoted, first sentence of the paragraph is correct, and is in accord with Chevron: the legal issues presented are for the courts to resolve.

Conclusion

The long-standing belief that FTC interpretations of UMC under Section 5 are not entitled to Chevron deference are almost certainly wrong. I’ve addressed three of the most pervasive myths about this above – there are a couple more, but you’ll need to read the full paper to learn about them and why they are wrong.

Two important questions follow, which we will likely take up in this symposium, and I take up a bit in my article: normatively, should the FTC receive such deference, and, if not, what restraints exist on the scope of the Commission’s Section 5’s UMC power? I’ll conclude with what I believe is the most important takeaway from this post: however we proceed, we must do so with an understanding of both antitrust and administrative law. The relevant audiences for our discussions about these issues are the FTC and Congress – not the courts; and the relevant language is that of policy and statute, not judicial precedent and stare decisis. Administrative law is the unique, beautiful, and scary beast that governs the FTC – those who fail to respect its nuances do so at their own peril.

Filed under: antitrust, federal trade commission, section 5, UMC symposium Tagged: antitrust, Chevron, Competition law, Federal Trade Commission, ftc

We welcome Commissioner Wright’s contribution in making the important point that the Commission’s unfair methods of competition (UMC) jurisdiction under Section 5 of the FTCA should be subject to limiting principles.  We make two observations about the policy statement and a more general observation about the FTC in light of its upcoming 100th anniversary.  The first is that injury to competition has long played a role in the debate concerning the appropriate scope of Section 5.  The second is that it is not yet clear what role efficiencies should play in a Section 5 claim.  Finally, we observe that Section 5 is one of a number of aspects of the FTC’s enforcement mandate that is ripe for reconsideration as we approach the centennial anniversary of both the statute and the agency.

Read the full piece here.

Summary

In recent months a veritable legal and policy frenzy has erupted around Google generally, and more specifically concerning how its search activities should be regulated by government authorities throughout the world in the name of ensuring “search neutrality.”  Concerns with search engine bias have led to a menu of proposed regulatory reactions.  Although the debate has focused upon possible remedies to the “problem” presented by a range of Google’s business decisions, it has largely missed the predicate question of whether search engine bias is the product of market failure or otherwise generates significant economic or social harms meriting regulatory intervention in the first place.  “Search neutrality” by its very name presupposes that mandatory neutrality or some imposition of restrictions on search engine bias is desirable, but it is an open question whether advocates of search neutrality have demonstrated that there is a problem necessitating any of the various prescribed remedies. This paper attempts to answer that question, and we evaluate both the economic and non-economic costs and benefits of search bias, as well as the solutions proposed to remedy perceived costs. We demonstrate that search bias is the product of the competitive process and link the search bias debate to the economic and empirical literature on vertical integration and the generally-efficient and pro-competitive incentives for a vertically integrated firm to favor its own content. We conclude that neither an ex ante regulatory restriction on search engine bias nor the imposition of an antitrust duty to deal upon Google would benefit consumers. Moreover, in considering the proposed remedies, we find that by they substitute away from the traditional antitrust consumer welfare standard, and would impose costs exceeding any potential benefits.