ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz was a guest on The Cyberlaw Podcast to discuss, among other topics: the electronic surveillance capabilities of the downed Chinese spy balloon; the brief but pointed calls for antitrust and data privacy reform in President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address; the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) recent loss in court on its challenge to Meta’s acquisition of Within; and other issues that may be on the horizon for FTC enforcement later this year. The full episode is embedded below.

ICLE Senior Scholar Daniel Gilman served as a panelist at the Committee for Justice’s Dec. 15, 2022 event on antitrust, Congress, and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), alongside Alden Abbott of the Mercatus Center, Jessica Melugin of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Robert Wagener of U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald’s office. The full video is embedded below.

ICLE Chief Economist Brian Albrecht joined the Cato Daily Podcast to discuss non?compete agreements in labor markets: why they exist, how they work, and the Federal Trade Commission’s proposal to ban them. The full episode is embedded below.

In the world of video games, the process by which players train themselves or their characters in order to overcome a difficult “boss battle” is called “leveling up.” I find that the phrase also serves as a useful metaphor in the context of corporate mergers. Here, “leveling up” can be thought of as acquiring another firm in order to enter or reinforce one’s presence in an adjacent market where a larger and more successful incumbent is already active.

Read the full piece here.

At the Jan. 26 Policy in Transition forum—the Mercatus Center at George Mason University’s second annual antitrust forum—various former and current antitrust practitioners, scholars, judges, and agency officials held forth on the near-term prospects for the neo-Brandeisian experiment undertaken in recent years by both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ). In conjunction with the forum, Mercatus also released a policy brief on 2022’s significant antitrust developments.

Read the full piece here.

Abstract

In bpost and Nordzucker the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice has finally arrived at a unified test for ne bis in idem, applicable to all areas of EU law. It rejected the antitrust-specific threefold condition of idem (same offender, same facts, and same protected legal interest) developed in Aalborg Portland and Toshiba, and focused solely on material acts, in line with Van Esbroek and Menci. The judgements are extremely timely given the increasing risks of overlapping decisions as a result of recent legislative initiatives undertaken at EU and national level targeting large online platforms. The paper maintains that, although bpost and Nordzucker are welcomed, some relevant issues remain unaddressed and may undermine the sound implementation of the ne bis in idem principle in the digital economy.

ICLE Chief Economist Brian Albrecht was a guest on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin podcast to discuss new rules proposed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ban workplace noncompete agreements. The full episode is embedded below.

In a prior post, I made the important if wholly unoriginal point that the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) recent policy statement regarding unfair methods of competition (UMC)—perhaps a form of “soft law”—has neither legal force nor precedential value. Gus Hurwitz offers a more thorough discussion of the issue here.

Read the full piece here.

ICLE Academic Affiliate Keith Hylton appeared in a spot on CBS News Boston to discuss the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation of Ticketmaster in the wake of widespread problems with the sale of tickets for Taylor Swift’s upcoming tour. As Hylton told the station:

For now, says Prof. Hylton, those sky-high prices look like something the market is willing to bear. “I don’t know what the evidence is that consumers are suffering from high prices. And they certainly seem all too happy to pay enormous prices of their own volition to go to these concerts,” he says.

Just today there was evidence of the federal government’s willingness to go after big corporations as the Justice Department filed an antitrust suit against Google over its online advertising practices. But Hylton says they likely need a lot more evidence before doing the same with Live Nation/Ticketmaster.

Video of the full piece is embedded below.