Antitrust Laws And Trade Regulation

In the eight years since this major work's first edition, the field of antitrust law has seen enormous changes. The new Second Edition reflects this progress, discussing the latest debate over the policies underlying the antitrust laws and the procedures under which they operate. In addition, the basic antitrust coverage has been brought forward in the book to provide students with a background in the basic law before introducing more complex issues such as antitrust exemptions. Its readings use current, definitive cases in its coverage of concerted activities, vertical price restraints, monopolizing, international antitrust, administrative law, regulated industries, and more.

This edition of the book offers a comprehensive re-thinking of antitrust law, approaching competition problems in the market from a functional standpoint. The book has roots in prior editions, but it really offers a top-to-bottom reconsideration of how best to present modern issues in antitrust. After a brief introduction to the origins and objectives of antitrust law, the book launches the study of the field with a chapter on the concept of market power and the meaning of competition--building blocks that are essential to understanding everything else that follows in the course. It then devotes three chapters to the primary kinds of antitrust issues that arise from marketplace conduct: horizontal agreements among competitors, vertical distribution agreements, and exclusionary practices (whether done by a single firm or a group). Because of their importance to the economy, as well as to antitrust practice, mergers have their own chapter, which provides not only the important judicial opinions in this area, but also extensive materials from the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, the primary regulators of merger activity. The book then turns to two specialized issues that are of growing importance: the way in which U.S. antitrust laws operate in the global economy, and an innovative new chapter on intellectual property, technology, and platforms. It concludes with a chapter discussing the legal boundaries around the field of antitrust, including exemptions and immunities, and a chapter on the institutional framework for enforcement--the framework that translates words on a page into reality on the ground. The Seventh Edition retains and, where appropriate, adds to, the problems that have been a feature of this book for decades. To maximize instructor flexibility, the problems for each topic now appear at the end of the chapter.

This 2007 supplement supports Pitofsky, Goldscmid and Wood's Trade Regulation, Case and Materials, 5th Edition law school casebook with respect to recent court opinions and other significant developments in trade regulation and antitrust law.