The Sound of One Hand Clapping: The 2010 Merger Guidelines and the Challenge of Judicial Adoption
Along with co-author Judd Stone, I’ve posted to SSRN our contribution to the Review of Industrial Organization‘s symposium on the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines — The Sound of One Hand Clapping: The 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the Challenge of Judicial Adoption.
The paper focuses on the Guidelines’ efficiencies analysis. We argue that while the 2010 HMGs “update” the Guidelines’ analytical approach in generally desirable ways, these updates are largely asymmetrical in nature: while the new Guidelines update economic thinking on one “side” of the ledger (changes that make the plaintiff’s prima facie burden easier to satisfy, ceteris paribus), they do not do so with respect to efficiencies analysis on the other side of the ledger. These asymmetrical changes thereby undermine the new Guidelines’ institutional credibility.
