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ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz was cited by Cox Media Group in a story about President Joe Biden signing legislation that seeks to force the divestment of TikTok. You can read the full piece here.

A court battle over the app could string along for some time, with the potential for appeals that could go all the way to the Supreme Court, which would likely uphold the law due to its current composition, Gus Hurwitz, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School, told the AP.

ICLE Chief Economist Brian Albrecht was cited by The Dispatch in an item on the Federal Trade Commission’s vote to ban nearly all noncompete agreements in employment contracts. You can read the full piece here.

The Federal Trade Commission approved a rule that effectively bans all non-compete clauses. These contract provisions stop workers from working for competitors or starting a competing business after they leave a job. In response, economist Brian Albrecht explored the limits to the research the FTC cited.

ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz was cited by the Huffington Post in a story about President Joe Biden signing legislation that seeks to force the divestment of TikTok. You can read the full piece here.

ICLE Senior Scholar Eric Fruits was quoted by Law360 in a story about the Federal Communications Commission’s vote to reimpose Title II regulation on broadband internet-access service providers. You can read the full piece here.

“I’m skeptical that Congress would actually act to do any sort of CRA reversal,” said Eric Fruits, a senior scholar at the International Center for Law and Economics, and a critic of the order. “And so that means you’re going to have the lawsuits. And the other big story of the year would be if no one filed a lawsuit. I bet you there’s someone, somewhere, who already has a lawsuit written.”

ICLE Chief Economist Brian Albrecht was cited by The Dispatch in a story on the Federal Trade Commission’s vote to ban nearly all noncompete agreements in employment contracts. You can read the full piece here.

But these are just projections, and some economists argue more research needs to be done on the economic effects of restricting the use of non-competes before a nationwide ban is instituted. “While there’s increasing evidence that banning non-competes—at least the way that it’s been done—increases wages, it’s not conclusive,” Brian Albrecht—the chief economist at the International Center on Law and Economics—told TMD. “There are not that many papers on this. We do not have that many clear examples.” He cited Oregon’s statewide ban on non-competes for hourly workers as a clear example of wages rising after a ban went into effect, but argued that there’s comparatively little research on the effects of a ban applying to every level of income.

ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz was quoted by the Associated Press in a story about President Joe Biden’s signing of a bill requiring Chinese firm ByteDance to sell its TikTok subsidiary. You can read the full piece here.

The battle could also string along for some time, with the potential for appeals that could go all the way to the Supreme Court, which would likely uphold the law due to its current composition, said Gus Hurwitz, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School.

…“One of the unfortunate and really frustrating things about national-security legislation (is that) it tends to be a trump card,” Hurwitz said. “Once national-security issues come up, they’re going to carry the day either successfully or not.”

Hurwitz added that he thinks there are legitimate national-security arguments that could be brought up here. National security can be argued because it’s a federal measure, he added. That sets this scenario apart from previously unsuccessful state-level legislation seeking to ban TikTok, such as in Montana.

ICLE Academic Affiliates Jonathan M. Barnett and Luke Froeb were quoted by Variety in a story about antitrust concerns that could be raised by growing sentiment in Hollywood that studios need to merge. You can read the full piece here.

“There are certain portions of the antitrust community who are of the view that certain elements of antitrust law over almost half a century have gone in the wrong direction,” says Jonathan Barnett, a professor at USC Gould School of Law. “The focus has been in particular on the rise of digital platforms and the accompanying level of concentration that you now observe in those markets.”

…Luke Froeb, Vanderbilt University professor and former chief economist for the Justice Department’s antitrust division, is critical of the Biden-era approach.

“They’ve stepped away from 50 years of case law that made things reasonably clear [for companies],” Froeb says. “They’re saying, ‘Hey, we’re going back to the ’60s, when we thought ‘Big is bad.’”

…“Deal risk is now elevated,” USC’s Barnett says. “The agencies are challenging deals that we wouldn’t have expected to be challenged under conventional antitrust doctrines. The agencies are demanding more information and more evidence of efficiencies in merger reviews. That all adds more costs and more risk of rejection.”

ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz was quoted by the New York Post in a story about President Joe Biden’s signing of a bill requiring Chinese firm ByteDance to sell its TikTok subsidiary. You can read the full piece here.

“Courts will likely agree that the law is an attempt to address a compelling government interest,” said Justin Hurwitz, a senior fellow and academic director at the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School.

“The question will be whether it does so effectively, and with minimal effects on other speech.”

ICLE Senior Scholar Miko?aj Barczentewicz was quoted by Ireland’s Business Post in a story about the European Data Privacy Board’s ruling on whether so-called “pay-or-consent” business models satisfy the General Data Protection Regulation. You can read the full piece here.

Miko?aj Barczentewicz, an associate professor in law at the University of Surrey, said it was likely that the EDPB will probably have to make a binding decision, rather than just issuing an opinion, on the legality of consent or pay.

He called the opinion an “unhappy compromise” between regulators who were strongly opposed to the model – such as the Norwegian data protection agency – and those with a softer view on it like the Irish DPC.

And he criticised the wording of the opinion, calling it “extremely vague and conditional”.

“One headline version of this is that this is illegal,” he told the Business Post. “But what they [the EDPB] say is vague and conditional. So it’s likely to be illegal in most cases, but the language is very wishy-washy.”