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Financial Times – ICLE Editor-in-Chief R.J. Lehmann was quoted by the Financial Times in a story about the state of Florida’s insurance market in the wake of Hurricane Ian. You can read full story here.

But others, including RJ Lehmann, a senior fellow at the International Center for Law & Economics think-tank, are faulting the governor for focusing more on provoking his foes in fights over culture war issues, such as critical race theory, at the expense of insurance reform.

“Lawmakers had ample warning about the need to act during the legislative session earlier this year, but they displayed more interest in waging culture-war battles than in helping Floridians to secure their lives and their property,” Lehmann wrote. The system, he added, was now facing “a state of full-blown collapse”.

Politico – ICLE Editor-in-Chief R.J. Lehmann was quoted by the Politico in a story about how Florida lawmakers prepared for a storm like Hurricane Ian. You can read full story here.

Tampa-area developers are assessing plans to build affordable housing right in the middle of the 100-year floodplain, which means an area has a 1-percent annual chance of flooding — though climate change is scrambling that probability, said R.J. Lehmann, the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based editor-in-chief of the International Center for Law and Economics, where he focuses on insurance.

…“Rather than address insurance, the priority of the legislature was to engage in all sorts of culture war issues — because apparently being mean to trans kids was more important,” Lehmann said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (Sept. 27, 2022) — The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) today announced that Elizabeth Lincicome has joined the institute as media and communications manager.

Prior to joining ICLE, Elizabeth was the marketing and development writer at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. She has also done communications and media-relations work for such public-policy research organizations as the Heritage Foundation, the R Street Institute, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law.

Her previous roles include working as a writer and off-air political producer for CBS News, where she covered the 2002 midterm elections, and as an associate producer and researcher for CNN’s White House unit. She was also a staff writer for The Hill newspaper and a publicist for Regnery Publishing Inc., both in Washington, D.C.

“Elizabeth is a seasoned communications professional with more than two decades of experience, most it in the nonprofit public-policy sector,” ICLE President Geoffrey Manne said. “We are excited about the help she can offer the team in garnering broader attention for ICLE scholars and for law & economics scholarship.”

Lincicome received her bachelor’s degree in public policy from Duke University and a master’s in communications from Johns Hopkins University. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, running, golfing, swimming, and writing freelance pieces for various publications across North Carolina, where she currently resides.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (Sept. 26, 2022) — As Hurricane Ian appears likely to intensify to a major hurricane of Category 3 or higher before making landfall somewhere on the Florida Peninsula or Panhandle later this week, International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) Editor-in-Chief and Senior Fellow R.J. Lehmann is available to discuss the storm’s potential impact on the deeply indebted National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the already-fragile Florida homeowners insurance market.

“Lawmakers both in Congress and the Florida Legislature have been warned for years that this day was coming, but have failed to muster the political will needed to adopt reforms,” Lehmann said. “In the case of the NFIP, Congress repeatedly has kicked the can down the road for five years with a series of short-term extensions. In the meantime, the program has made no progress on paying down the $20.5 billion it still owes the Treasury after having $16 billion of debt forgiven in 2017.”

“In Florida, the litigation crisis has left the market in a state of full-blown collapse, with a string of domestic insurers either having ceased writing new business or been taken into receivership, while a decade of efforts to shrink the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance Corp. are now almost completely reversed,” added Lehmann, a resident of St. Petersburg, Fla. “Lawmakers had ample warning about the need to act during the legislative session earlier this year, but they displayed more interest in waging culture-war battles than in helping Floridians to secure their lives and their property.”

For more on the Florida insurance crisis, see this piece R.J. wrote in March for Insurance Journal.  For more on proposals to reform the NFIP, see his May 2021 testimony to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. Journalists interested in interviewing R.J. can contact him at [email protected] or 1-908-265-5272.

Yahoo Finance – ICLE Academic Affiliate John Lopatka was quoted by Yahoo Finance in a story about the California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s lawsuit charging anticompetitive behavior by Amazon. You can read full story here.

“There’s certainly an anticompetitive story to be told, but to me there’s also a compelling free rider defense for Amazon,” said Penn State Law professor John Lopatka, who’s referring to Amazon’s concern that sellers will use Amazon’s platform to generate interest in their products, then sell them elsewhere.

…But the case is still one that’s difficult to prove, Lopatka said. That’s in part because Amazon’s seller agreements technically permit sellers to set their own prices, and in part because of Amazon’s push to feature the lowest possible price — both tend to appear as policies that foster competition.

Global Competition Review – ICLE Senior Scholar Lazar Radic was quoted by Global Competition Review in a story about a recent federal district court ruling in an antitrust case brought against Google by 16 states. You can read full story (behind a subscriber firewall) here.

Lazar Radic, a legal researcher at the European University Institute, said that the ruling should give Google some “cautious optimism”. Despite the three counts continuing on, Radic noted that these are early days.

“There is still significant space for Google to contest these moving forward, and win,” Radic told GCR USA.

He noted that the parties can still dispute whether Google was vigorously competing or attempting to monopolise and whether the company coerced buyers into purchasing its ad server and exchange services together.

The Points Guy  – An ICLE report on the effects of the Durbin amendment on debit-card networks was cited in a post by The Points Guy op-ed about proposals to extend its rules to credit-card networks. You can read full piece here.

Another study by the International Center for Law & Economics estimates that the cap on interchange fees for debit transactions hit large banks’ annual revenues to the tune of $6.6-$8 billion. The loss in revenue directly contributed to reducing free checking accounts and rewards programs.

LUXEMBOURG CITY (Sept. 14, 2022) — The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) today expressed disappointment with the decision by the General Court of the European Union largely upholding the European Commission’s 2019 decision that terms imposed by Google parent Alphabet on manufacturers of Google Android mobile devices abused what the Commission deemed a dominant market position.

The following quote may be attributed to ICLE Director of Competition Policy Dirk Auer:

“Today’s ruling is a strong endorsement of the formalistic approach to competition law that has been a hallmark of Margrethe Vestager’s tenure. However, the upper court in Luxembourg has repeatedly rebuked this vision of competition enforcement, in favor of a more economically driven approach. There is thus every reason to believe Alphabet will appeal the ruling, and the outcome of those proceedings is anything but a foregone conclusion. The upshot is that, while the Commission may have won today’s battle, this merely sets up a deeper conflict surrounding the future direction of European competition law.”

For in-depth analysis of the original Commission ruling, see the February 2020 ICLE white paper “Making Sense of the Google Android Decision.” Journalists interested in interviewing Auer or other ICLE scholars about the decision should contact ICLE Editor-in-Chief R.J. Lehmann at [email protected] or 1-908-265-5272.

PORTLAND, Ore. (Sept. 13, 2022) — The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) today announced that Daniel Gilman has joined the institute as a senior scholar of competition policy.

Prior to joining ICLE, Dan spent 16 years as an attorney-advisor in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Office of Policy Planning, where he worked on competition issues in health-care and technology markets and, more broadly, on the competitive impact of regulation, with a focus on privacy regulations, among others. 

During a leave from the FTC in the 2014-2015 academic year, Dan visited Harvard Law School as the Victor H. Kramer Foundation Fellow in antitrust law and economics. He previously was a visiting professor of law at the University of Maryland School of Law, where he taught law and economics and health and science law. 

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity both to work with Dan and to learn from him,” ICLE President and Founder Geoffrey Manne said. “Few can match his combined expertise both as a scholar of competition law and as a practitioner.”

Dan has also taught at Georgetown University Law Center, Penn State University College of Medicine, and at Washington University in St. Louis. He also has experience in private practice with Hogan & Hartson LLP in Washington, D.C. 

“I’m excited to join the team at ICLE,” Giman said. “It’s an ideal place for me to continue the work at the heart of my career: economically grounded research and advocacy on competition policy and regulation, in the service of consumer welfare.”

Dan’s work has been published in such academic journals as Georgetown Law Journal, American Journal of Law & Medicine, Nursing Economics, the Journal of Health Care Law & Policy, Behavioral & Brain Sciences, and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. He holds a law degree from Georgetown, a PhD in philosophy from the University of Chicago, and an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College.