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Presentations & Interviews ICLE President Geoffrey Manne participated in the FTC’s Hearing #5: Vertical Merger Analysis and the Role of the Consumer Welfare Standard in U.S. Antitrust Law . . .
ICLE President Geoffrey Manne participated in the FTC’s Hearing #5: Vertical Merger Analysis and the Role of the Consumer Welfare Standard in U.S. Antitrust Law on the panel, The Consumer Welfare Standard in Antitrust Law (Session 2). Read full transcript here. Video of the event is embedded below.
Presentations & Interviews Watch ICLE President Geoffrey Manne debate Matt Stoller and Hal Singer at the fifth annual Lincoln Reboot conference. This year’s theme of “innovation under threat” . . .
Watch ICLE President Geoffrey Manne debate Matt Stoller and Hal Singer at the fifth annual Lincoln Reboot conference. This year’s theme of “innovation under threat” focuses on the rising fears over the impact of technology on society. Video of the event is embedded below (Geoff’s panel starts at about the 2:50 mark).
Scholarship After the rise of the precautionary principle (or approach) in the late 1990s in a number of jurisdictions, the economic consequences of this newly created principle of law have unfolded.
After the rise of the precautionary principle (or approach) in the late 1990s in a number of jurisdictions, the economic consequences of this newly created principle of law have unfolded. Such consequences were either acclaimed – for providing a minimisation of a number of externalities – or lambasted – for providing justificatory grounds for the prohibition of potentially propitious innovations due to the existence of scientific uncertainties.
Whereas innovation has increasingly become of salient importance in today’s economies, European economies face sluggish economic growth rates partly caused by a regulatory framework where risk-aversion is incentivized. The precautionary principle induces and favours risk-aversion at the expense of innovation.
This Article discusses the law and economic foundations and implications of the precautionary principle in the WTO, the European Union, France and the United Kingdom. Having introduced the importance of law in stifling innovation and discussed the current precautionary principle, this Article vouches for an innovation principle to come to the fore in order to counterbalance the innovation-costly precautionary principle. A number of recommendations are proposed at the end of the article.
TOTM Last week, the UK Court of Appeal upheld the findings of the High Court in an important case regarding standard essential patents (SEPs).
Last week, the UK Court of Appeal upheld the findings of the High Court in an important case regarding standard essential patents (SEPs). Of particular significance, the Court of Appeal upheld the finding that the defendant, an implementer of SEPs, could have the sale of its products enjoined in the UK unless it enters into a global licensing deal on terms deemed by the court to be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND). The case is noteworthy not least because the threat of an injunction of this sort has become increasingly rare in other jurisdictions, arguably resulting in an imbalance in bargaining power between patent holders and implementers.
Read the full piece here.
TOTM The dust has barely settled on the European Commission’s record-breaking €4.3 Billion Google Android fine, but already the European Commission is gearing up for its next high-profile case.
The dust has barely settled on the European Commission’s record-breaking €4.3 Billion Google Android fine, but already the European Commission is gearing up for its next high-profile case. Last month, Margrethe Vestager dropped a competition bombshell: the European watchdog is looking into the behavior of Amazon. Should the Commission decide to move further with the investigation, Amazon will likely join other US tech firms such as Microsoft, Intel, Qualcomm and, of course, Google, who have all been on the receiving end of European competition enforcement.
TOTM The CVS/Aetna merger is just one part of a growing private-sector movement in the healthcare industry to adopt new (mostly) vertical arrangements that seek to move beyond some of the structural inefficiencies that have plagued healthcare in the United States since World War II.
Last week, the DOJ cleared the merger of CVS Health and Aetna (conditional on Aetna’s divesting its Medicare Part D business), a merger that, as I previously noted at a House Judiciary hearing, “presents a creative effort by two of the most well-informed and successful industry participants to try something new to reform a troubled system.” (My full testimony is available here).
TOTM It is a truth universally acknowledged that unwanted telephone calls are among the most reviled annoyances known to man. But this does not mean that laws intended to prohibit these calls are themselves necessarily good. Indeed, in one sense we know intuitively that they are not good.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that unwanted telephone calls are among the most reviled annoyances known to man. But this does not mean that laws intended to prohibit these calls are themselves necessarily good. Indeed, in one sense we know intuitively that they are not good. These laws have proven wholly ineffective at curtailing the robocall menace — it is hard to call any law as ineffective as these “good”. And these laws can be bad in another sense: because they fail to curtail undesirable speech but may burden desirable speech, they raise potentially serious First Amendment concerns.
Amicus Brief ICLE filed a brief in support of Petitioners in the D.C. Circuit case, Mozilla v. FCC, a case that challenged the FCC's authority to issue the Restoring Internet Freedom Order ("RIFO").
ICLE filed a brief in support of Petitioners in the D.C. Circuit case, Mozilla v. FCC, a case that challenged the FCC’s authority to issue the Restoring Internet Freedom Order (“RIFO”). In RIFO, the FCC repealed the Title II classification on ISPs, preempted conflicting state laws, and applied a transparency rule against ISPs, among other provisions. In our brief, we argue that:
Contrary to the claims of Petitioners, the Commission acted well within its authority in adopting the Order. The Commission developed a comprehensive regulatory scheme for ISPs that includes both obligations imposed under the Communications Act, as well as complementary regulation and potential enforcement under antitrust law by the Commission’s sister agencies. As we show below, this competition-oriented, light touch regulatory regime comports with the relevant provisions and stated goals of the Communications Act far better than the ex ante rules adopted in the Title II Order. In adopting this competition-oriented regulatory regime, the Commission also acted within its authority to preempt contradictory state laws under well- established precedent. The Commission did so while properly allowing for states to continue to regulate under other laws of general applicability that do not conflict with or frustrate the federal policies underlying the Order. Accordingly, the Order should be upheld and the petitions for review should be denied.
Contrary to the claims of Petitioners, the Commission acted well within its authority in adopting the Order. The Commission developed a comprehensive regulatory scheme for ISPs that includes both obligations imposed under the Communications Act, as well as complementary regulation and potential enforcement under antitrust law by the Commission’s sister agencies. As we show below, this competition-oriented, light touch regulatory regime comports with the relevant provisions and stated goals of the Communications Act far better than the ex ante rules adopted in the Title II Order.
In adopting this competition-oriented regulatory regime, the Commission also acted within its authority to preempt contradictory state laws under well- established precedent. The Commission did so while properly allowing for states to continue to regulate under other laws of general applicability that do not conflict with or frustrate the federal policies underlying the Order.
Accordingly, the Order should be upheld and the petitions for review should be denied.
TOTM One focus in the analysis of smoke-free air (SFA) laws has been on measuring the impact smoking bans have on the restaurant and hospitality industries. . . .
One focus in the analysis of smoke-free air (SFA) laws has been on measuring the impact smoking bans have on the restaurant and hospitality industries. The overwhelming or “consensus” result of this research is that bans impose no adverse impact on industry revenues and employment levels (Scollo et al., 2003; Scollo and Lal, 2008; Hahn, 2010; CDC Fact Sheet, 2014).
