Showing 9 of 209 Publications

Cablevision v. Viacom and the Sad State of Tying Doctrine

Popular Media Whereas the antitrust rules on a number of once-condemned business practices (e.g., vertical non-price restraints, resale price maintenance, price squeezes) have become more economically sensible in the . . .

Whereas the antitrust rules on a number of once-condemned business practices (e.g., vertical non-price restraints, resale price maintenanceprice squeezes) have become more economically sensible in the last few decades, the law on tying remains an embarrassment.  The sad state of the doctrine is evident in a federal district court’s recent denial of Viacom’s motion to dismiss a tying action by Cablevision.

According to Cablevision’s complaint, Viacom threatened to impose a substantial financial “penalty” (probably by denying a discount) unless Cablevision licensed Viacom’s less popular television programming (the “Suite Networks”) along with its popular “Core Networks” of Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET, and MTV.  This arrangement, Cablevision insisted, amounted to a per se illegal tie-in of the Suite Networks to the Core Networks.

Similar tying actions based on cable bundling have failed, and I have previously explained why cable bundling like this is, in fact, efficient.  But putting aside whether  the tie-in at issue here was efficient, the district court’s order is troubling because it illustrates how very unconcerned with efficiency tying doctrine is.

First, the district court rejected–correctly, under ill-founded precedents–Viacom’s argument that Cablevision was required to plead an anticompetitive effect.  It concluded that Cablevision had to allege only four elements: separate tying and tied products, coercion by the seller to force purchase of the tied product along with the tying product, the seller’s possession of market power in the tying product market, and the involvement of a “not insubstantial” dollar volume of commerce in the tied product market.  Once these elements are alleged, the court said,

plaintiffs need not allege, let alone prove, facts addressed to the anticompetitive effects element.  If a plaintiff succeeds in establishing the existence of sufficient market power to create a per se violation, the plaintiff is also relieved of the burden of rebutting any justification the defendant may offer for the tie.

In other words, if a tying plaintiff establishes the four elements listed above, the efficiency of the challenged tie-in is completely irrelevant.  And if a plaintiff merely pleads those four elements, it is entitled to proceed to discovery, which can be crippling for antitrust defendants and often causes them to settle even non-meritorious cases. Given that a great many tie-ins involving the four elements listed above are, in fact, efficient, this is a terrible rule.  It is, however, the law as established in the Supreme Court’s Jefferson Parish decision.  The blame for this silliness therefore rests on that Court, not the district court here.

But the Cablevision order includes a second unfortunate feature for which the district court and the Supreme Court share responsibility.  Having concluded that Cablevision was not required to plead anticompetitive effect, the court went on to say that Cablevision “ha[d], in any event, pleaded facts sufficient to support plausibly an inference of anticompetitive effect.”  Those alleged facts were that Cablevision would have bought content from another seller but for the tie-in:

Cablevision alleges that if it were not forced to carry the Suite Networks, it “would carry other networks on the numerous channel slots that Viacom’s Suite Networks currently occupy.”  (Compl. par. 10.)  Cablevision also alleges that Cablevision would buy other “general programming networks” from Viacom’s competitors absent the tying arrangement.  (Id.)

In other words, the district court reasoned, Cablevision alleged anticompetitive harm merely by pleading that Viacom’s conduct reduced some sales opportunities for its rivals.

But harm to a competitor, standing alone, is not harm to competition.  To establish true anticompetitive harm, Cablevision would have to show that Viacom’s tie-in reduced its rivals’ sales by so much that they lost scale efficiencies so that their average per-unit costs rose.  To make that showing, Cablevision would have to show (or allege, at the motion to dismiss stage) that Viacom’s tying occasioned substantial foreclosure of sales opportunities in the tied product market. “Some” reduction in sales to rivals–while perhaps anticompetitor–is simply not sufficient to show anticompetitive harm.

Because the Supreme Court has emphasized time and again that mere harm to a competitor is not harm to competition, the gaffe here is primarily the district court’s fault.  But at least a little blame should fall on the Supreme Court.  That Court has never precisely specified the potential anticompetitive harm from tying: that a tie-in may enhance market power in the tied or tying product markets if, but only if, it results in substantial foreclosure of sales opportunities in the tied product market.

If the Court were to do so, and were to jettison the silly quasi-per se rule of Jefferson Parish, tying doctrine would be far more defensible.

[NOTE: For a more detailed explanation of why substantial tied market foreclosure is a prerequisite to anticompetitive harm from tie-ins, see my article, Appropriate Liability Rules for Tying and Bundled Discounting, 72 Ohio St. L. J. 909 (2011).]

Filed under: antitrust, law and economics, tying

Continue reading
Antitrust & Consumer Protection

Meese and Oman Spank the Corporate Law Prof Amici in Hobby Lobby

Popular Media The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) subjects government-imposed burdens on religious exercise to strict scrutiny.  In particular, the Act provides that “[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a . . .

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) subjects government-imposed burdens on religious exercise to strict scrutiny.  In particular, the Act provides that “[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless the government can establish that doing so is the least restrictive means of furthering a “compelling government interest.”

So suppose a for-profit corporation’s stock is owned entirely by evangelical Christians with deeply held religious objections to abortion.  May our federal government force the company to provide abortifacients to its employees?  That’s the central issue in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, which the Supreme Court will soon decide.  As is so often the case, resolution of the issue turns on a seemingly mundane matter:  Is a for-profit corporation a “person” for purposes of RFRA?

In an amicus brief filed in the case, a group of forty-four corporate and criminal law professors argued that treating corporations as RFRA persons would contradict basic principles of corporate law.  Specifically, they asserted that corporations are distinct legal entities from their shareholders, who enjoy limited liability behind a corporate veil and cannot infect the corporation with their own personal religious views.  The very nature of a corporation, the scholars argued, precludes shareholders from exercising their religion in corporate form.  Thus, for-profit corporations can’t be “persons” for purposes of RFRA.

In what amounts to an epic takedown of the law professor amici, William & Mary law professors Alan Meese and Nathan Oman have published an article explaining why for-profit corporations are, in fact, RFRA persons.  Their piece in the Harvard Law Review Forum responds methodically to the key points made by the law professor amici and to a few other arguments against granting corporations free exercise rights.

Among the arguments that Meese and Oman ably rebut are:

  • Religious freedom applies only to natural persons.

Corporations are simply instrumentalities by which people act in the world, Meese and Oman observe.  Indeed, they are nothing more than nexuses of contracts, provided in standard form but highly tailorable by those utilizing them.  “When individuals act religiously using corporations they are engaged in religious exercise.  When we regulate corporations, we in fact burden the individuals who use the corporate form to pursue their goals.”

  • Given the essence of a corporation, which separates ownership and control, for-profit corporations can’t exercise religion in accordance with the views of their stockholders.

This claim is simply false.  First, it is possible — pretty easy, in fact — to unite ownership and control in a corporation.  Business planners regularly do so using shareholder agreements, and many states, including Delaware, explicitly allow for shareholder management of close corporations.  Second, scads of for-profit corporations engage in religiously motivated behavior — i.e., religious exercise.  Meese and Oman provide a nice litany of examples (with citations omitted here):

A kosher supermarket owned by Orthodox Jews challenged Massachusetts’ Sunday closing laws in 1960.  For seventy years, the Ukrops Supermarket chain in Virginia closed on Sundays, declined to sell alcohol, and encouraged employees to worship weekly.  A small grocery store in Minneapolis with a Muslim owner prepares halal meat and avoids taking loans that require payment of interest prohibited by Islamic law.  Chick-fil-A, whose mission statement promises to “glorify God,” is closed on Sundays.  A deli that complied with the kosher standards of its Conservative Jewish owners challenged the Orthodox definition of kosher found in New York’s kosher food law, echoing a previous challenge by a different corporation of a similar New Jersey law.  Tyson Foods employs more than 120 chaplains as part of its effort to maintain a “faith-friendly” culture.  New York City is home to many Kosher supermarkets that close two hours before sundown on Friday and do not reopen until Sunday.  A fast-food chain prints citations of biblical verses on its packaging and cups.  A Jewish entrepreneur in Brooklyn runs a gas station and coffee shop that serves only Kosher food.  Hobby Lobby closes on Sundays and plays Christian music in its stores.  The company provides employees with free access to chaplains, spiritual counseling, and religiously themed financial advice.  Moreover, the company does not sell shot glasses, refuses to allow its trucks to “backhaul” beer, and lost $3.3 million after declining to lease an empty building to a liquor store.

As these examples illustrate, the assertion by lower courts that “for-profit, secular corporations cannot engage in religious exercise” is just empirically false.

  • Allowing for-profit corporations to have religious beliefs would create intracorporate conflicts that would reduce the social value of the corporate form of business.

The corporate and criminal law professor amici described a parade of horribles that would occur if corporations were deemed RFRA persons.  They insisted, for example, that RFRA protection would inject religion into a corporation in a way that “could make the raising of capital more challenging, recruitment of employees more difficult, and entrepreneurial energy less likely to flourish.”  In addition, they said, RFRA protection “would invite contentious shareholder meetings, disruptive proxy contests, and expensive litigation regarding whether the corporations should adopt a religion and, if so, which one.”

But actual experience suggests there’s no reason to worry about such speculative harms.  As Meese and Oman observe, we’ve had lots of experience with this sort of thing:  Federal and state laws already allow for-profit corporations to decline to perform or pay for certain medical procedures if they have religious or moral objections.  From the Supreme Court’s 1963 Sherbert decision to its 1990 Smith decision, strict scrutiny applied to governmental infringements on corporations’ religious exercise.  A number of states have enacted their own versions of RFRA, most of which apply to corporations.   Thus, “[f]or over half a century, … there has been no per se bar to free exercise claims by for-profit corporations, and the parade of horribles envisioned by the [law professor amici] has simply not materialized.”  Indeed, “the scholars do not cite a single example of a corporate governance dispute connected to [corporate] decisions [related to religious exercise].”

  • Permitting for-profit corporations to claim protection under RFRA will lead to all sorts of false claims of religious belief in an attempt to evade government regulation.

The law professor amici suggest that affording RFRA protection to for-profit corporations may allow such companies to evade regulatory requirements by manufacturing a religious identity.  They argue that “[c]ompanies suffering a competitive disadvantage [because of a government regulation] will simply claim a ‘Road to Damascus’ conversion.  A company will adopt a board resolution asserting a religious belief inconsistent with whatever regulation they find obnoxious . . . .”

As Meese and Oman explain, however, this problem is not unique to for-profit corporations.  Natural persons may also assert insincere religious claims, and courts may need to assess sincerity to determine if free exercise rights are being violated.  The law professor amici contend that it would be unprecedented for courts to assess whether religious beliefs are asserted in “good faith.”  But the Supreme Court decision the amici cite in support of that proposition, Meese and Oman note, held only that courts lack competence to evaluate the truth of theological assertions or the accuracy of a particular litigant’s interpretation of his faith.  “This task is entirely separate … from the question of whether a litigant’s asserted religious beliefs are sincerely held.  Courts applying RFRA have not infrequently evaluated such sincerity.”

***

In addition to rebutting the foregoing arguments (and several others) against treating for-profit corporations as RFRA persons, Meese and Oman set forth a convincing affirmative argument based on the plain text of the statute and the Dictionary Act.  I’ll let you read that one on your own.

I’ll also point interested readers to Steve Bainbridge’s fantastic work on this issue.  Here is his critique of the corporate and criminal law professors’  amicus brief.  Here is his proposal for using the corporate law doctrine of reverse veil piercing to assess a for-profit corporation’s religious beliefs.

Read it all before SCOTUS rules!

Filed under: Affordable Care Act, business, close corporations, contracts, corporate governance, corporate law, health care, health care reform debate, politics, regulation

Continue reading
Financial Regulation & Corporate Governance

Lambert and Sykuta Talk Tesla in the Kansas City Star

Popular Media Mike Sykuta and I, both proud Missourians, recently took to the opinion section of the Kansas City Star to discuss pending state legislation that would bar automobile . . .

Mike Sykuta and I, both proud Missourians, recently took to the opinion section of the Kansas City Star to discuss pending state legislation that would bar automobile manufacturers from operating their own retail outlets in the Show Me state.  The immediate target of the bill is Tesla, but the bigger concern of the auto dealers, who drafted the statutory language we criticize, is that the big carmakers will bypass independent dealers and start running their own retail outlets.

The arguments in our op-ed will be familiar to TOTM readers.  We begin with three fundamental points:  (1) Distribution is an “input” for carmakers.  (2) Producers, if left to their own devices, will choose the more efficient option when deciding whether to “buy” the distribution input (i.e., to sell through independent dealers, who pay a discounted wholesale price) or “make” it (i.e., to operate their own retail outlets and charge the higher retail price).  (3) Consumers — who ultimately pay all input costs, including the cost of distribution — will benefit if the most efficient option is selected.  In short, the interests of carmakers and consumers are aligned here: both benefit from implementation of the most efficient distribution scheme.

We then rebut the arguments that a direct distribution ban is needed to break up monopoly power, to assure adequate aftermarket servicing of vehicles, or to encourage appropriate safety recalls.  (On these points, we draw heavily from International Center for Law & Economics’ letter to Gov. Chris Christie regarding New Jersey’s proposed anti-Tesla legislation.)

Go read the whole thing.

Filed under: economics, international center for law & economics, law and economics, markets, politics, regulation, Sykuta Tagged: direct distribution, Tesla

Continue reading
Innovation & the New Economy

Commissioner Wright Nails It on Minimum RPM

Popular Media FTC Commissioner Josh Wright is on a roll. A couple of days before his excellent Ardagh/Saint Gobain dissent addressing merger efficiencies, Wright delivered a terrific . . .

FTC Commissioner Josh Wright is on a roll. A couple of days before his excellent Ardagh/Saint Gobain dissent addressing merger efficiencies, Wright delivered a terrific speech on minimum resale price maintenance (RPM). The speech, delivered in London to the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, signaled that Wright will seek to correct the FTC’s early post-Leegin mistakes on RPM and will push for the sort of structured rule of reason that is most likely to benefit consumers.

Wright began by acknowledging that minimum RPM is, from a competitive standpoint, a mixed bag. Under certain (rarely existent) circumstances, RPM may occasion anticompetitive harm by facilitating dealer or manufacturer collusion or by acting as an exclusionary device for a dominant manufacturer or retailer. Under more commonly existing sets of circumstances, however, RPM may enhance interbrand competition by reducing dealer free-riding, facilitating the entry of new brands, or encouraging optimal production of output-enhancing dealer services that are not susceptible to free-riding.

Because instances of minimum RPM may be good or bad, liability rules may err in two directions. Overly lenient rules may fail to condemn output-reducing instances of RPM, but overly strict rules will prevent uses of RPM that would benefit consumers by enhancing distributional efficiency. Efforts to tailor a liability rule so that it makes fewer errors (i.e., produces fewer false acquittals or false convictions) will create complexity that makes the rule more difficult for business planners and courts to apply. An optimal liability rule, then, should minimize the sum of “error costs” (social losses from expected false acquittals and false convictions) and “decision costs” (costs of applying the rule).

Crafting such a rule requires judgments about (1) whether RPM is more likely to occasion harmful or beneficial effects, and (2) the magnitude of expected harms or benefits. If most instances of RPM are likely to be harmful, the harm resulting from an instance of RPM is likely to be great, and the foregone efficiencies from false convictions are likely to be minor, then the liability rule should tend toward condemnation – i.e., should be “plaintiff-friendly.” On the other hand, if most instances of RPM are likely to be beneficial, the magnitude of expected benefit is significant, and the social losses from false acquittals are likely small, then a “defendant-friendly” rule is more likely to minimize error costs.

As Commissioner Wright observed, economic theory and empirical evidence about minimum RPM’s competitive effects, as well as intuitions about the magnitude of those various effects, suggest that minimum RPM ought to be subject to a defendant-friendly liability rule that puts the burden on plaintiffs to establish actual or likely competitive harm. With respect to economic theory, procompetitive benefit from RPM is more likely because the necessary conditions for RPM’s anticompetitive effects are rarely satisfied, while the prerequisites to procompetitive benefit often exist. Not surprisingly, then, most studies of minimum RPM have concluded that it is more frequently used to enhance rather than reduce market output. (As I have elsewhere observed and Commissioner Wright acknowledged, the one recent outlier study is methodologically flawed.) In terms of the magnitude of harms from wrongly condemning or wrongly approving instances of RPM, there are good reasons to believe greater harm will result from the former sort of error. The social harm from a false acquittal – enhanced market power – is self-correcting; market power invites entry. A false condemnation, by contrast, can be corrected only by a subsequent judicial, regulatory, or legislative overruling.  Moreover, an improper conviction thwarts not just the challenged instance of RPM but also instances contemplated by business planners who would seek to avoid antitrust liability. Taken together, these considerations about the probability and magnitude of various competitive effects argue in favor of a fairly lenient liability rule for minimum RPM – certainly not per se illegality or a “quick look” approach that deems RPM to be inherently suspect and places the burden on the defendant to rebut a presumption of anticompetitive harm.

Commissioner Wright’s call for a more probing rule of reason for minimum RPM represents a substantial improvement on the approach the FTC took in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 Leegin decision. Shortly after Leegin abrogated the rule of per se illegality for minimum RPM, women’s shoe manufacturer Nine West petitioned the Commission to modify a pre-Leegin consent decree constraining Nine West’s use of RPM arrangements. In agreeing to modify (but not eliminate) the restrictions, the Commission endorsed a liability rule that would deem RPM to be inherently suspect (and thus presumptively illegal) unless the defendant could establish an absence of the so-called “Leegin factors” – i.e., that there was no dealer or manufacturer market power, that RPM was not widely used in the relevant market, and that the RPM at issue was not dealer-initiated.

The FTC’s fairly pro-plaintiff approach was deficient in that it simply lifted a few words from Leegin without paying close attention to the economics of RPM. As Commissioner Wright explained,

[C]ritical to any decision to structure the rule of reason for minimum RPM is that the relevant analytical factors correctly match the economic evidence. For instance, some of the factors identified by the Leegin Court as relevant for identifying whether a particular minimum RPM agreement might be anticompetitive actually shed little light on competitive effects. For example, the Leegin Court noted that “the source of the constraint might also be an important consideration” and observed that retailer-initiated restraints are more likely to be anticompetitive than manufacturer-initiated restraints. But economic evidence recognizes that because retailers in effect sell promotional services to manufacturers and benefit from such contracts, it is equally as possible that retailers will initiate minimum RPM agreements as manufacturers. Imposing a structured rule of reason standard that treats retailer-initiated minimum RPM more restrictively would thus undermine the benefits of the rule of reason.

Commissioner Wright’s remarks give me hope that the FTC will eventually embrace an economically sensible liability rule for RPM. Now, if we could only get those pesky state policy makers to modernize their outdated RPM thinking.  As Commissioner Wright recently observed, policy advocacy “is a weapon the FTC has wielded effectively and consistently over time.” Perhaps the Commission, spurred by Wright, will exercise its policy advocacy prowess on the backward states that continue to demonize minimum RPM arrangements.

Filed under: antitrust, economics, error costs, federal trade commission, law and economics, markets, regulation, resale price maintenance

Continue reading
Antitrust & Consumer Protection

So What’s Going to Happen to Securities Fraud Class Actions? Some Thoughts on Halliburton

TOTM On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund, a case that could drastically alter the securities fraud . . .

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund, a case that could drastically alter the securities fraud landscape.  Here are a few thoughts on the issues at stake in the case and a cautious prediction about how the Court will rule.

Read the full piece here

Continue reading
Financial Regulation & Corporate Governance

Commissioner Wright’s McWane Dissent Illuminates the Law and Economics of Exclusive Dealing

Popular Media Commissioner Josh Wright’s dissenting statement in the Federal Trade Commission’s recent McWane proceeding is a must-read for anyone interested in the law and economics of . . .

Commissioner Josh Wright’s dissenting statement in the Federal Trade Commission’s recent McWane proceeding is a must-read for anyone interested in the law and economics of exclusive dealing. Wright dissented from the Commission’s holding that McWane Inc.’s “full support” policy constituted unlawful monopolization of the market for domestic pipe fittings.

Under the challenged policy, McWane, the dominant producer with a 45-50% share of the market for domestic pipe fittings, would sell its products only to distributors that “fully supported” its fittings by carrying them exclusively.  There were two exceptions: where McWane products were not readily available, and where the distributor purchased a McWane rival’s pipe along with its fittings.  A majority of the Commission ruled that McWane’s policy constituted illegal exclusive dealing.  Commissioner Wright agreed that the policy amounted to exclusive dealing, but he concluded that the complainant had failed to prove that the exclusive dealing constituted unreasonably exclusionary conduct in violation of Sherman Act Section 2.

The first half of Wright’s 52-page dissent is an explanatory tour de force.  Wright first explains how and why the Supreme Court rethought its originally inhospitable rules on “vertical restraints” (i.e., trade-limiting agreements between sellers at different levels of the distribution system, such as manufacturers and distributors).  Recognizing that most such restraints enhance overall market output even if they incidentally injure some market participants, courts now condition liability on harm to competition—that is, to overall market output.  Mere harm to an individual competitor is not enough.

Wright then explains how this “harm to competition” requirement manifests itself in actions challenging exclusive dealing.  Several of the antitrust laws—Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and Section 3 of the Clayton Act—could condemn arrangements in which a seller will deal only with those who purchase its brand exclusively.  Regardless of the particular statute invoked, though, there can be no antitrust liability absent either direct or indirect evidence of anticompetitive (not just anti-competitor) effect.  Direct evidence entails some showing that the exclusive dealing at issue led to lower market output and/or higher prices than would otherwise have prevailed.  Indirect evidence usually involves showings that (1) the exclusive dealing at issue foreclosed the defendant’s rivals from a substantial share of available marketing opportunities; (2) those rivals were therefore driven (or held) below minimum efficient scale (MES), so that their per-unit production costs were held artificially high; and (3) the defendant thereby obtained the ability to price higher than it would have absent the exclusive dealing.

The McWane complainant, Star Pipe Products, Ltd., sought to discharge its proof burden using indirect evidence. It asserted that its per-unit costs would have been lower if it owned a domestic foundry, but it maintained that its 20% market share did not entail sales sufficient to justify foundry construction.  Thus, Star concluded, McWane’s usurping of rivals’ potential sales opportunities through its exclusive dealing policy held Star below MES, raised Star’s per-unit costs, and enhanced McWane’s ability to raise prices.  Voila!  Anticompetitive harm.

Commissioner Wright was not convinced that Star had properly equated MES with sales sufficient to justify foundry construction.  The only record evidence to that effect—evidence the Commission deemed sufficient—was Star’s self-serving testimony that it couldn’t justify building a foundry at its low level of sales and would be a more formidable competitor if it could do so.  Countering that testimony were a couple of critical bits of actual market evidence.

First, the second-largest domestic seller of pipe fittings, Sigma Corp., somehow managed to enter the domestic fittings market and capture a 30% market share (as opposed to Star’s 20%), without owning any of its own production facilities.  Sigma’s entire business model was built on outsourcing, yet it managed to grow sales more than Star.  This suggests that foundry ownership – and, thus, a level of sales sufficient to support foundry construction – may not be necessary for efficient scale in this industry.

Moreover, Star’s own success in the domestic pipe fittings market undermined its suggestion that MES can be achieved only upon reaching a sales level sufficient to support a domestic foundry.  Star entered the domestic pipe fittings market in 2009, quickly grew to a 20% market share, and was on pace to continue growth when the McWane action commenced.  As Commissioner Wright observed, “for Complaint Counsel’s view of MES to make sense on the facts that exist in the record, Star would have to be operating below MES, becoming less efficient over time as McWane’s Full Support Program further raised the costs of distribution, and yet remaining in the market and growing its business.  Such a position strains credulity.”

Besides failing to establish what constitutes MES in the domestic pipe fittings industry, Commissioner Wright asserted, complainant Star also failed to prove the degree of foreclosure occasioned by McWane’s full support program.

First, both Star and the Commission reasoned that all McWane sales to distributors subject to its full support program had been “foreclosed,” via exclusive dealing, to McWane’s competitors.  That is incorrect.  The sales opportunities foreclosed by McWane’s full support policy were those that would have been made to other sellers but for the policy.  In other words, if a distributor, absent the full support policy, would have purchased 70 units from McWane and five from Star but, because of the full support program, purchased all 75 from McWane, the full support program effectively foreclosed Star from five sales opportunities, not 75.  By failing to focus on “contestable” sales—i.e., sales other than those that would have been made to McWane even absent the full support program—Star and the Commission exaggerated the degree of foreclosure resulting from McWane’s exclusive dealing.

Second, neither Star nor the Commission made any effort to quantify the sales made to McWane’s rivals under the two exceptions to McWane’s full support policy.  Such sales were obviously not foreclosed to McWane’s rivals, but both Star and the Commission essentially ignored them.  So, for example, if a distributor that carried McWane’s products (and was thus subject to the full support policy) purchased 70 domestic fittings from McWane and 30 from other producers pursuant to one of the full support program’s exceptions, Star and the Commission counted 100 foreclosed sales opportunities.  Absent information about the number of distributor purchases under exceptions to the full support program, it is simply impossible to assess the degree of foreclosure occasioned by the policy.

In sum, complainant Star – who bore the burden of establishing an anticompetitive (i.e., market output-reducing) effect of the exclusive dealing at issue – failed to show how much foreclosure McWane’s full support program actually created and to produce credible evidence (other than its own self-serving testimony) that the program raised its costs by holding it below MES.  The most Star showed was harm to a competitor – not harm to competition, a prerequisite to liability based on exclusive dealing.      

In addition, several other pieces of evidence suggested that McWane’s exclusive dealing was not anticompetitive.  First, the full support program did not require a commitment of exclusivity for any period of time. Distributors purchasing from McWane could begin carrying rival brands at any point (though doing so might cause McWane to refuse to sell to them in the future).  Courts have often held that short-duration exclusive dealing arrangements are less troubling than longer-term agreements; indeed, a number of courts presume the legality of exclusive dealing contracts of a year or less.  McWane’s policy was of no, not just short, duration.

Second, entry considerations suggested an absence of anticompetitive harm here.  If entry into a market is easy, there is little need to worry that exclusionary conduct will produce market power.  Once the monopolist begins to exercise its power by reducing output and raising price, new entrants will appear on the scene, driving price and output back to competitive levels.  The recent and successful entry of both Star and Sigma, who collectively gained about half the total market share within a short period of time, suggested that entry into the domestic pipe fittings market is easy.

Finally, evidence of actual market performance indicated that McWane’s exclusive dealing policies did not generate anticompetitive effect.  McWane enforced its full support program for the first year of Star’s participation in the domestic fittings market, but not thereafter.  Star’s growth rate, however, was identical before and after McWane stopped enforcing the program.  According to Commissioner Wright, “Neither Complaint Counsel nor the Commission attempt[ed] to explain how growth that is equal with and without the Full Support Program is consistent with Complaint Counsel’s theory of harm that the Program raised Star’s costs of distribution and impaired competition.  The most plausible inference to draw from these particular facts is that the Full Support Program had almost no impact on Star’s ability to enter and grow its business, which, under the case law, strongly counsels against holding that McWane’s conduct was exclusionary.”

***

Because antitrust exists to protect competition, not competitors, an antitrust complainant cannot base a claim of monopolization on the mere fact that its business was injured by the defendant’s conduct.  By the same token, a party complaining of unreasonably exclusionary conduct also ought not to prevail simply because it made self-serving assertions that it would have had more business but for the defendant’s action and would have had lower per-unit costs if it had more business.  If the antitrust is to remain a consumer-focused body of law, claims like Star’s should fail.  Hopefully, Commissioner Wright’s FTC colleagues will eventually see that point.

Filed under: antitrust, economics, exclusionary conduct, exclusive dealing, federal trade commission, law and economics, monopolization, regulation

Continue reading
Antitrust & Consumer Protection

Why the New Evidence on Minimum RPM Doesn’t Justify a Per Se or Quick Look Approach

Popular Media Mike Sykuta and I recently co-authored a short article discussing the latest evidence on, and proper legal treatment of, minimum resale price maintenance (RPM). Following . . .

Mike Sykuta and I recently co-authored a short article discussing the latest evidence on, and proper legal treatment of, minimum resale price maintenance (RPM). Following is a bit about the article (which is available here).

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s Leegin decision holding that minimum RPM must be evaluated under antitrust’s Rule of Reason, the battle over the proper legal treatment of the practice continues to rage at both the federal and state levels.

At the federal level, courts, commentators, and regulators have split over what sort of Rule of Reason should apply.  Some, like yours truly, have argued that because RPM is usually pro- rather than anticompetitive, challengers should bear the burden of proving likely anticompetitive effect (at a minimum, the structural prerequisites to such an effect) under a full-blown Rule of Reason.  Others contend that RPM should be assessed using some version of “quick look” Rule of Reason, under which a challenged instance of RPM is presumed anticompetitive if the plaintiff makes some fairly narrow showing (e.g., that consumer prices have risen, or that the RPM was dealer-initiated, or that the RPM is imposed on homogeneous products that are not sold with dealer services that are susceptible to free-riding).

At the state level, a number of states have simply decided not to follow Leegin and to retain, under state antitrust law, the per se rule of Dr. Miles (the 1911 decision overruled by Leegin).  At least nine states have taken this tack.

We advocates of a full-blown Rule of Reason for minimum RPM have generally emphasized two things.  First, we have observed that while the structural prerequisites to RPM’s potentially anticompetitive harms (facilitation of dealer-level or manufacturer-level cartels, or exclusion by a dominant dealer or manufacturer) are rarely satisfied, the necessary conditions for RPM’s procompetitive benefits (avoidance of free-riding, facilitating entry, encouraging non-free-rideable dealer services) are frequently met.  Second, we have shown that the pre-Leegin empirical evidence on RPM’s effects generally confirmed what theory would predict: Most instances of RPM that have been examined closely have proven output-enhancing.

In recent months, advocates of stricter RPM rules have pointed to an ambitious new study that they say supports their position.  The study authors, University of Chicago economics PhD candidates Alexander MacKay and David Aron Smith, purported to conduct “a natural experiment to estimate the effects of Leegin on product prices and quantity.”  In particular, MacKay & Smith compared post-Leegin changes in price and output levels in states retaining a rule of per se illegality with those in states likely to assess RPM under the Rule of Reason.  Utilizing Nielsen consumer product data for 1,083 “product modules” (i.e., narrowly defined product categories such as “vegetables-broccoli-frozen”), the authors assessed price and output changes between the six month period immediately preceding Leegin (January-June 2007) and the last six months of 2009.

With respect to price changes, MacKay & Smith found that 15% of the product modules exhibited price increases that were higher, by a statistically significant margin, in Rule of Reason states than in per se states.  In only 6.9% of modules were price increases higher, to a statistically significant degree, in per se states than in Rule of Reason states.  With respect to quantity changes, 14.7% of modules saw a statistically significant decrease in quantity in Rule of Reason states versus per se states, whereas only 3% of modules exhibited a statistically significant quantity increase in Rule of Reason states over per se states.  MacKay & Smith thus conclude that greater leniency on minimum RPM is associated with higher prices and lower output levels, a conclusion that, they say, supports the view that RPM is more frequently anticompetitive than procompetitive.

Mike and I contend that the MacKay & Smith study is flawed and does not justify restrictive RPM policies.  First, the study provides very little support for the view that RPM has caused anticompetitive harm within the group of product markets examined.  As an initial matter (and as the authors admit), the study does not demonstrate that actual RPM agreements have caused anticompetitive harm in the post-Leegin era.  To make such a showing, one would have to demonstrate that (1) minimum RPM was actually imposed on a product after the Leegin decision, (2) the RPM policy raised the price of that product from what it otherwise would have been, and (3) the quantity of the product sold fell from what it otherwise would have been.  The authors present no evidence that RPM policies were actually implemented on any of the product categories for which they identified statistically significant price increases and quantity decreases.  As they concede, their study could show only that legal environments treating RPM leniently (not RPM agreements themselves) are conducive to anticompetitive outcomes.

But the authors’ data provide little support for even that claim.  To prove anticompetitive harm stemming from an “RPM-permissive” legal environment, one would have to show that the transition from per se illegality to rule of reason treatment occasioned, for a substantial number of products, both a statistically significant price increase and a statistically significant output reduction on the same product.  An output reduction not accompanied by an increase in price suggests that something besides minimum RPM (or even a “permissive attitude” toward RPM) caused output to fall.  A price increase without a reduction in output is consistent with the view that RPM induced demand-enhancing dealer activities that mitigated the effect of the price increase, albeit by not as much as the producer may have hoped.  (A price increase without an output decrease could also indicate that demand for the product at issue was inelastic, but MacKay & Smith presented no evidence suggesting that demand for any of the product categories exhibiting price increases but not quantity decreases was particularly inelastic.)

According to the authors’ list of “modules with significant price or quantity changes” (Appendix A of their study), only 17 of the 1,083 product categories examined—a mere 1.6%—exhibited both a price increase and a quantity decrease.  And those effects were for categories of products (e.g., barbecue sauces as a whole), not necessarily particular brands of a product (e.g., KC Masterpiece or Sweet Baby Ray’s).  It could well be that within the 1.6% of categories exhibiting both an average price increase and an average output decrease, there were no individual brands exhibiting both effects at once.  Indeed, most of the seventeen product categories involve dealer and manufacturer markets that are neither cartelizable (so neither the dealer nor manufacturer collusion theory of anticompetitive harm could apply) nor dominated by a powerful manufacturer or dealer (so neither the dominant manufacturer nor dominant dealer theory could apply).  To the extent MacKay & Smith’s findings provide any evidence that RPM-permissiveness occasions anticompetitive harm in household consumer products markets, that evidence is awfully thin.

Moreover, in limiting their examination to the product categories included in the Nielsen Consumer Panel Data, MacKay & Smith excluded most products for which one of the procompetitive rationales for minimum RPM—the “avoidance of free-riding” rationale—would apply.  As the authors observe, only about “30% of household consumption is accounted for by the categories in the data.”  That 30% is comprised mainly of groceries, other consumable household products, and small appliances.  The study thus excludes data related to purchases of large appliances, complicated electronics projects, and other relatively expensive products that are frequently sold along with “free-rideable” amenities such as product demonstrations, consumer education, and set-up or repair services.  Because the MacKay & Smith study systematically disregards information on transactions likely to reflect a procompetitive use of minimum RPM, it fails to establish the authors’ conclusion that “the harm to consumers resulting from rule-of-reason treatment of minimum RPM seems to outweigh its benefits.”

In the end, then, Mike and I conclude that the new RPM evidence provides no reason to reject the persuasive theory- and evidence-based arguments in favor of lenient, full-blown Rule of Reason treatment of minimum RPM.  Of course, we welcome comments on our article.

Filed under: antitrust, consumer protection, economics, law and economics, regulation, resale price maintenance

Continue reading
Antitrust & Consumer Protection

Commissioner Wright’s Call for Section 5 Guidance Getting Attention on Capitol Hill

Popular Media Late this summer, TOTM hosted a blog symposium on potential guidelines for the Federal Trade Commission’s exercise of its “unfair methods of competition” authority under Section 5 of . . .

Late this summer, TOTM hosted a blog symposium on potential guidelines for the Federal Trade Commission’s exercise of its “unfair methods of competition” authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act.  Commissioner Josh Wright inspired the symposium by proposing a set of enforcement guidelines for the Commission.  Shortly thereafter, Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen proposed her own guidelines, which were largely consistent with Commissioner Wright’s.  Participants in the blog symposium discussed both sets of guidelines and agreed — without exception, I believe — that it’s time for the FTC to give business some guidance on how it will enforce its “stand alone” Section 5 authority (i.e., its authority to pursue conduct that would not violate the Sherman Act).

The proposals by Commissioners Wright and Olhausen have now attracted attention on Capitol Hill.  In a letter sent last week to FTC Chair Edith Ramirez, eight members of Congress (Senators Charles Grassley and Mike Lee, along with Representatives Bob Goodlatte, Spencer Bachus, Lamar Smith, Trent Franks, Raul Labrador, and Blake Farenthold) acknowledged the chilling effect vacuous liability standards create and urged the FTC to provide some sort of definition of an actionable “unfair method of competition”:

As you know, antitrust enforcement actions pursued under the Clayton and Sherman Acts are subject to rigorous economic tests to ensure that the subject activity results in actual economic harm.  In contrast, stand-alone Section 5 claims do not receive similar scrutiny.  The absence of clear parameters for the FTC’s Section 5 authority based on empirical and economic justifications engenders uncertainty in the business community.  This uncertainty acts as a deterrent to innovation and creativity, which are critical drivers of the American economy and vitally important in today’s challenging economic environment.  Accordingly, articulating a standard by which the FTC intends to utilize its Section 5 unfair method of competition authority should be a high priority.

The members of Congress also disputed Chairwoman Ramirez’s assurances that the FTC’s prior Section 5 enforcement decisions provide the guidance businesses need.  In recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommitte on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Ramirez stated:

I do believe that there is guidance that’s provided.  If you look back at the recent cases in which the agency has taken action, using Section 5 on a standalone basis, it would include cases such as the invitation to collude cases in the context of the exchange of information, that can then be used to facilitate collusion or other unlawful practices and also in the standard-setting arena.

But what about the Intel matter, in which the FTC used Section 5 to go after above-cost loyalty rebates that probably would have passed muster under Sherman Act precedents?  That action resulted in a settlement in which Intel agreed to limit its future discounting.  To the extent that “precedent” provides guidance to businesses, the guidance seems a bit perverse!

Hopefully Chairwoman Ramirez will take the advice of her two FTC colleagues, now echoed by eight members of Congress, and provide the business community with a little clarity.  As she and the other commissioners mull over the matter, I would direct them to the terrific discussion in the links at the bottom of this post.

Filed under: antitrust, federal trade commission, UMC symposium

Continue reading
Antitrust & Consumer Protection

What Would the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Say About Healthcare.gov?

Popular Media In yesterday’s hearings on the disastrous launch of the federal health insurance exchanges, contractors insisted that part of the problem was a last-minute specification from . . .

In yesterday’s hearings on the disastrous launch of the federal health insurance exchanges, contractors insisted that part of the problem was a last-minute specification from the government:  the feds didn’t want people to be able to “window shop” for health insurance until they had created a profile and entered all sorts of personal information.

That’s understandable.  For this massive social experiment to succeed — or, at least, to fail less badly — young, healthy people need to buy health insurance.  Policy prices for those folks, though, are going to be really high because (1) the ACA requires all sorts of costly coverages people used to be able to decline, and (2) the Act’s “community rating” and “guaranteed issue” provisions prevent insurers from charging older and sicker people an actuarily appropriate rate and therefore require their subsidization by the young and healthy.  To prevent the sort of sticker shock that might cause young invincibles to forego purchasing insurance, Obamacare advocates didn’t want them seeing unsubsidized insurance rates.  Determining a person’s subsidy, though, requires submisison of all sorts of personal information.  Thus, the original requirement that website visitors create a profile and provide gobs of information before seeing insurance rates.

Given the website’s glitches and the difficulty of actually creating a working profile, the feds have now reversed course and are permitting window shopping.  An applicant can enter his or her state and county, family size, and age range (<50 or >50) and receive a selection of premium estimates.  To avoid dissuading people from applying for coverage in light of high premiums, the website takes great pains to emphasize that the estimated premiums do not account for the available subsidies to which most people will be entitled.  For example, to get my own quote, I had to answer a handful of questions and click “Next” a few times, and in the process of doing so, the website announced seven times that the estimated prices I was about to see would not include the generous subsdies to which I would probably be entitled.  The Obamacare folks, you see, want us consumers to know what we’re really going to have to pay.

Or do they?

According to the website, I could buy a Coventry Bronze $15 co-pay plan for $218.03 per month (unsubsidized).  An Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield Direct Access Plan would cost me $213.39 per month (unsubsidized).  When I went to a private exchange and conducted the same inquiry, however, I learned that the price for the former policy would be $278.66 and, for the latter, between $270.17.  So the private exchange tells me the price for my insurance would be 27% percent higher than the amount Healthcare.gov estimates in its window shopping feature.  What gives?

As it turns out, the federal exchange assumes (without admitting it) that anyone under age 49 is 27 years old.  The private website, by contrast, based quotes on my real age (42).  Obviously, the older a person is, the higher the premium will be.  Since the ACA mandates that individuals up to age 26 be allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance policies, the age the federal website assumes is the very youngest age at which most people would be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.  In other words, the federal website picks the rosiest assumption in estimating insurance premiums and never once tells users it’s doing so.  It does, however, awkwardly remind them seven times in fewer than seven consecutive screens that their actual premiums will probably be lower than the figure quoted.

Can you imagine if a private firm pulled this sort of stunt?  Elizabeth Warren’s friends at the CFPB would be on it like white on rice!

Look, the website problems are a red herring.  Sure, they’re shockingly severe, and they do illustrate the limits of government to run things effectively, limits the ACA architects resolutely disregarded.  But they’ll get fixed eventually.  The main reason they’re a long-term problem is that they exacerbate the Act’s most fundamental flaw: its tendency to create a death spiral of adverse selection in which older and sicker people, beneficiaries under the ACA, purchase health insurance, while young, healthy folks, losers under the Act, forego it.  Once this happens, insurance premiums will skyrocket, encouraging even more young and healthy people to drop out of the pool of insureds and thereby making things even worse.  The most significant problem stemming from the website “glitches” (my, how that term has been stretched!) is that they have made it so hard to apply for insurance that only those most desperate for it — the old and sick, the ones we least need in the pool of insureds — will go through the rigmarole of signing up.  On this point, see Holman Jenkins and George Will.

But who knows.  Maybe Zeke Emanuel can fix the problem by getting the Red Sox to sell Obamacare to young invincibles.  (I’m not kidding.  That was his plan for avoiding adverse selection.)

Go Cards!

Filed under: consumer financial protection bureau, consumer protection, health care, health care reform debate, regulation, truth on the market

Continue reading
Antitrust & Consumer Protection