More than 20 countries have introduced taxation on e-cigarettes and other vapor products. In the United States, several states and local jurisdictions have enacted e-cigarette taxes.

Most of the harm from smoking is caused by the inhalation of toxicants released through the combustion of tobacco. Non-combustible nicotine de-livery systems, including e-cigarettes, “heat-not-burn” products, smokeless tobacco and other nicotine delivery systems, are generally considered to be significantly less harmful than combustible cigarettes.

Policymakers face a wide range of strategies regarding the taxation of va-por products. On the one hand, principles of harm reduction suggest vapor products should face no taxes or low taxes relative to conventional ciga-rettes, to guide consumers toward a safer alternative to smoking. On the other hand, the precautionary principle as well as principles of tax equity point toward the taxation of vapor products at rates similar to conventional cigarettes.

Analysis of tax policy issues is complicated by divergent—and sometimes obscured—intentions of such policies. Some policymakers claim that the objective of taxing nicotine products is to reduce nicotine consumption. Other policymakers indicate the objective is to raise revenues to support government spending. Often missed in the policy discussion is the effect of fiscal policies on innovation and the development and commercialization of harm-reducing products. Also, often missed are the consequences for cur-rent consumers of nicotine products, including smokers seeking to quit us-ing harmful conventional cigarettes.

Policy decisions regarding taxation of vapor products should consider both long-term fiscal effects, as well as broader economic and welfare effects. These effects might (or might not) suggest very different tax policies to those that have been enacted or are under consideration.

Our research concludes the economics of harm reduction with respect to vapor products is an area in need of reliable empirical research.

• Within a harm reduction framework, some policy objectives overlap and others conflict. For example, an objective to encourage current smokers to switch to less harmful e-vapor products largely is con-sistent with an objective to discourage dual use. On the other hand, policies that encourage switching may conflict with an objective to discourage youth uptake of vapor products. The extent of the net eco-nomic benefits of vapor products in a harm reduction framework are empirical matters of degree that require reliable research. To date, there is no peer-reviewed published research quantifying the net economic benefits of vapor products with respect to harm reduction.

 

• The small body of research on consumer demand response to e-ciga-rette pricing finds a wide range of estimates of e-cigarette own-price elasticity and cross-price elasticity with respect to conventional cig-arettes, even among studies using the same set of data. Without re-liable empirical research, policymakers face great uncertainty regarding whether specific tax proposals will achieve—or con-found—their stated policy goals.

 

• Despite the innovations that gave rise to the market for vapor prod-ucts, virtually no empirical research has evaluated the impacts of taxation and regulation on innovation in the industry. Differential taxation of vapor products would like induce a supply-side response, but there is no quantitative research on supply at this time.

Principles of harm reduction recognize that every proposal has uncertain outcomes as well as potential spillovers and unforeseen consequences. Nev-ertheless, the basic principle of harm reduction is a focus on safer rather than safe. Policymakers must make their decisions weighing the expected benefits and expected costs. With such high risks and costs associated with cigarette and other combustible use, taxes and regulations must be devel-oped in an environment of uncertainty and with an eye toward a net reduc-tion in harm, rather than an unattainable goal of zero harm.

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Abstract

Owners of standard essential patents (SEPs) are cast as villains for engaging in “patent hold-up,” i.e., taking advantage of the fact that they negotiate royalties with implementer-licensees that already have made sunk investments in the standard. In contrast to “patent ambush,” patent hold-up involves no standard-setting misconduct or harm to any competitive process, and thus cannot violate antitrust law. Commentators taking a contrary positions confuse the ends of antitrust law with its means. Antitrust law promotes consumer welfare only by protecting competition. Casting aside this core principle would expose business decisions, including ordinary price setting, to judicial oversight. Commitments made by SEP owners in the standard-setting process, however, should be enforced, and they are enforced. Without an antitrust cause of action, implementers invoke the powers of the courts to resolve royalty disputes over SEPs.

Abstract

On July 18, 2018, the European Commission fined Alphabet (Google) 4.34 billion euros. This decision confirms the Commission’s willingness to deter companies from engaging in anticompetitive practices. It also confirms that the European competition authority is missing the big picture by imposing disproportionate fines with regard to the specifics of the digital economy.

According to Article 23(2) of Regulation No 1/2003, the fines imposed by competition authorities cannot exceed 10% of the overall annual turnover of the concerned company. This limit is intended to avoid disproportionate sanctions that would jeopardize the company’s future. In fact, however, while this turnover threshold is useful, it is insufficient. The digital economy requires companies to compete by innovating. R&D investments have become the lifeblood of the digital economy and the very essence of competition. The specific competitive dynamics of the industry should also be taken into account in considering the extent to which fines imposed by competition authorities can disrupt the investment capacity of companies.

This article introduces an empirical study conducted over the period 2004 to 2018 (Android included) on all the fines imposed by the European Commission on the basis of Article 102 TFEU. We show that the European Commission’s decisions may have the effect of slowing down R&D for numerous sanctioned companies. For this reason, an innovation protection mechanism should be incorporated into the calculation of the fine. We propose doing so by introducing a new limit that caps Article 102 fines at a certain percentage of companies’ investment in R&D.

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Summary

This paper seeks to ascertain whether Google’s Android licensing terms, which are currently under scrutiny from the European Commission, could be excused under an innovation defense framework. The paper starts by analyzing Google’s business model with regard to its Android OS. It then identifies the Commission’s main concerns. It argues that Google is simply pursuing a sensible appropriation strategy. Finally, it puts forward a framework which hinges on the concept of “appropriability”, and tentatively applies it to Google’s behavior.

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in high-tech markets. The existing body of research on the topic suggests that such markets lead to reinterpret antitrust law key concepts – which should be done. There is little published literature, however, on the subject of the new anti-competitive strategies nestle in these markets, which this paper addressed.

The process of competition generally encourages companies to lower their prices, which benefits the consumer. And yet, in certain specific cases, antitrust rules intend to sanction predatory prices because they eliminate the competitive process itself. A similar situation applies to innovation. Innovation is one of the main bases for competition between companies and it is beneficial to consumers who may enjoy new products which are also better suited to their needs. But certain “innovative” behaviors are considered as being predatory and are punished accordingly, despite the fact that no legal concept specifically addresses this issue.

This absence of a legal category specifically dedicated to anti-competitive practices disguised as “innovation” leads judges to create numerous type I and II errors. The jurisprudence didn’t yet generalize the etiquette of “predatory innovation,” which nevertheless answers some of the modern problems encountered by antitrust law with high-tech markets development.

This article seeks to substantiate the value of this notion. Because many practices in high-tech markets are simultaneously occurring on several continents at once – the new version of software is generally available at the same moment around the world – we chose to carry out a comparative analysis between the United States and Europe. We are doing so because these two bodies of antitrust law may learn from each other – they have homologous roots – and also because the concerned countries have the highest GDP in the world.

The main objective of this paper, in the first instance, is to portray the practices that can and should be condemned as predatory innovation. And in fact, most predatory innovation practices are currently addressed under the label of “technological tying.” The creation of some legal rules dedicated to predatory innovation would lead to removing this legal concept and to create – instead – a more coherent legal regime – in both continents – that could be understood by business leaders.

Abstract

In its investigation into Google’s search practices, Google Search, the Commission alleges that Google abuses its dominant position on the web search market by giving systematic favourable treatment to its “comparison shopping product” (namely, “Google Shopping”) in its general search results pages. This Article analyses whether the conduct in question in Google Search can be an abuse under Article 102TFEU (prohibiting the abuse of a dominant position in the EU) and, if so, under what conditions. This Article proceeds by first providing a positive assessment of the application of Article 102TFEU and the relevant case law to the issues involved in Google Search on the assumption that the Commission may seek to place the facts under an existing category of abuse. Three categories of abuse are analysed to this end: refusal to deal (including the essential facilities doctrine), discrimination, and tying. The article then proceeds to a normative assessment of the circumstances under which Article 102TFEU should be applied in Google Search under a principled conceptualisation of “abuse,” one which requires exploitation, exclusion, and a lack of an increase in efficiency. The Article finds that the facts in Google Search do not meet the requirements of the existing law to be found abusive unless the established frameworks for the types of abuse examined are unjustifiably disrupted. It also finds that under the principled conceptualisation of abuse adopted in this Article, the facts in Google Search do not represent the type of conduct that should be found abusive either.

Summary

In a US Senate Hearing in 2011, Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, stated that ‘competition is only one click away’. On 27 June 2017, the European Commission fined Google €2.42 billion for allegedly ‘abusing dominance as search engine by giving illegal advantage to own comparison shopping service’. Ruthlessly, a fine is only one click away too.

Why did the European Commission impose such a record-breaking fine on Google? According to Competition Commissioner Margareth Vestager,

‘Google abused its market dominance as a search engine by promoting its own comparison shopping service in its search results, and demoting those of competitors’ (…) therefore denying ‘other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation.’

The products referenced on Google Shopping have been promoted in the search results in comparisonwith other shopping platforms, the Commission considered.

The legal arguments of the European Commission are the following: thanks to its complex algorithms, Google has allegedly manipulated the search results of products in order to promote its own platform, Google Shopping, at the expense of competitors. Since the artificial modification of the ranking of search results is tantamount to a price paid by economic actors, by the manipulation of its search results, Google has abused its dominance. It has infringed Article 102 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) because it i) ‘has systematically given prominent placement to its own comparison shopping service’ and ii) ‘has demoted rival comparison shopping services in its search results’. Although clear, both legal arguments from the only document yet available – namely the Press Release from t27 June 2017 by the European Commission – are nonetheless unsubstantiated and ungrounded as discussed below successively.

Summary

High-tech and network industries have a long history of evoking populist scrutiny. New technologies frequently disrupt incumbent, often less centralized, business models and interfere with existing relationships between sellers and consumers. Inevitably, the paradigmatic small-town buggy manufacturer displaced by technological advance directs his ire against the large, distant car companies that make the automobiles responsible for his demise. Even consumers and business owners who benefit from enhanced efficiency or entirely new and beneficial products often end up feeling dependent on them. Adding to that a distrust of firms that operate in geographies or at scales that are distant from typical consumer experiences, critics express their concerns about firms with a single heuristic: big is bad.

Although often framed in more complex antitrust terms — large firms are accused of employing anticompetitive business practices, including the development of “predatory” innovations designed to expand their reach and thwart potential competition, for example — populist antipathy is, at root, fundamentally about the “bigness” of these high-tech firms. Companies that owe their success — and their size — to clever implementations of innovative technologies are ultimately decried not for their technology or their business models but for their expansive operations. Standard Oil, AT&T (in the early 20th century), IBM, AT&T (in the late 20th century), Microsoft, and, most recently, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and (once again) AT&T have regularly found themselves in the crosshairs of antitrust enforcers for growing large by besting (and, often, buying) their competitors.

The size of these companies — among the largest in the American economy — endows them with the superficial appearance of market power, providing competitors and advocates with a rhetorical basis for antitrust action against them. But their problems also extend beyond mere allegations that they are too large: in each case, these companies have also engaged in some conduct disfavored by powerful political actors. The appearance of market power and the firms’ problematic-to-some conduct give rise to calls to use antitrust law to regulate their behavior — or, perhaps most troubling, to constrain their perceived power by breaking them up.

This article is not an apologia for the bad acts of the modern tech industry. There is no question that some of today’s largest companies have transformed society and the economy over the years (not necessarily always for the better) and have engaged in arguably troubling conduct in the process. But whatever the beliefs of those calling for the breakup of Big Tech, the question remains whether it is wise to shoehorn broader social and political concerns into the narrow, economic remit of antitrust law.

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ICLE Antitrust & Consumer Protection Program Issue Brief No. 2018-01 (May 23, 2018)

Summary

As has been rumored in the press for a few weeks, Comcast announced today that it is considering a renewed bid for a large chunk of Twenty-First Century Fox’s (Fox) assets. In December 2017, Fox’s board rejected a bid from Comcast that was some 16% higher than the one it ultimately accepted from Disney.

The board’s decision was based largely on its assessment that a merger with Comcast created unacceptable antitrust risk, where a merger with Disney did not.

In a brief analysis of the proposed deal, ICLE executive director and antitrust expert, Geoffrey Manne, posits that there is no basis for ascribing a greater antitrust risk to Comcast’s purchase of Fox’s assets than to Disney’s.

Among other things, Manne discusses why the DOJ’s AT&T/Time Warner merger challenge doesn’t increase the risk that the DOJ would challenge a Comcast/Fox deal. His analysis also touches on:

• Why a vertical Comcast merger may be less problematic than the horizontal Disney one;
• Why the addition of Fox’s regional sports programming may create bigger problems for Disney than for Comcast;
• Why the purchase of Fox’s filmed entertainment assets cuts against Disney more than Comcast; and
• Why a Comcast controlling interest in Hulu is unlikely to concern antitrust enforcers.

In sum, Manne finds that while a Comcast/Fox deal may pose some antitrust enforcement risk, it certainly doesn’t entail sufficient risk to deem the deal dead on arrival — and it seems to represent less regulatory risk than a Disney/Fox tie-up.

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