The Evolution Of Us Antitrust Enforcement

This insightful book offers a fresh interpretation of the modern US experience of how government agencies have enforced competition law. Kovacic is uniquely well positioned to provide an in-depth analysis on US antitrust enforcement: Since 2006 he has served on the Federal Trade Commission; including his time spent as chairman of the Commission from March 2008 until March 2009. Prior to becoming a Commissioner, Kovacic was engaged as the E.K. Gubin Professor of Government Contracts Law at George Washington University Law School. Kovacic brings this wealth of experience to bear on this book by expertly examining public enforcement since the early 1960s, and identifies substantial levels of continuity across different time periods. the author explains that this continuity is rooted in the lessons that public agencies have learnt from past cases, such as changes in widely shared views of what constitutes good norms; and the key institutional features of the US system, including private rights of action. This book distills ideas for the development of competition policy globally, and suggests criteria by which the quality of individual systems can be assessed.

William Letwin's thorough, carefully argued, and elegantly written work is the only book length study of the Sherman Antitrust Act, a law designed to shape the economic life of a large complex society through maintaining the "correct" level of competition in the economy. This is a superb history and complete analysis of the Act, from its English and American common law antecedents to the events that led to the first revisions of the Act in the form of the Clayton Antitrust and Federal Trade Commission Acts.

Preface p. xi 1 Economics p. 1 I. Definitions p. 1 II. Perfect Competition Versus Monopoly p. 9 III. Further Topics p. 21 2 Law and Policy p. 27 I. Some Interpretation Issues p. 28 II. Enacting the Antitrust Law p. 30 III. What Should Antitrust Law Aim to Do? p. 40 3 Enforcement p. 43 I. Optimal Enforcement Theory p. 43 II. Enforcement Provision of the Antitrust Laws p. 47 Appendix p. 64 4 Cartels p. 68 I. Cartels p. 68 II. Conscious Parallelism p. 73 III. Conclusion p. 89 5 Development of Section 1 Doctrine p. 90 I. The Sherman Act Versus the Common Law p. 90 II. Rule of Reason and Per-Se Rule p. 104 III. Conclusion p. 112 6 Rule of Reason and Per-Se Rule p. 113 I. The Case for Price Fixing p. 113 II. Per-Se and Rule of Reason Analysis: Further Developments p. 116 III. Per-Se Versus Rule of Reason Tests: Understanding the Supreme Court's Justification for the Per-Se Rule p. 129 7 Agreement p. 132 I. The Development of Inference Doctrine p. 133 II. Rejection of Unilateral Contract Theory p. 140 8 Facilitating Mechanisms p. 144 I. Data Dissemination Cases p. 145 II. Basing Point Pricing and Related Practices p. 154 III. Basing Point Pricing: Economics p. 160 9 Boycotts p. 166 I. Pre-Socony p. 166 II. Post-Socony p. 170 III. Post-BMI/Sylvania p. 181 IV. Conclusion p. 184 10 Monopolization p. 186 I. Development of Section 2 Doctrine p. 186 II. Leveraging and Essential Facility Cases p. 202 III. Predatory Pricing p. 212 IV. Conclusion p. 228 11 Power p. 230 I. Measuring Market Power p. 230 II. Determinants of Market Power p. 235 III. Substitutability and the Relevant Market: Cellophane p. 237 IV. Multimarket Monopoly and the Relevant Market: Alcoa p. 239 V. Measuring Power: Guidelines p. 243 12 Attempts p. 244 I. The Swift Formula and Modern Doctrine p. 244 II. Dangerous Probability Requirement p. 248 13 Vertical Restraints p. 252 I. Resale Price Maintenance p. 252 II. Vertical Nonprice Restraints p. 262 III. Manufacturer Retains Title p. 267 IV. Agreement p. 270 14 Tying and Exclusive Dealing p. 279 I. Introduction p. 279 II. Early Cases p. 284 III. Development of Per-Se Rule p. 286 IV. Tension Between Rule of Reason Arguments and Per-Se Rule p. 295 V. Technological Tying p. 301 VI. Exclusive Dealing p. 303 Appendix p. 307 15 Horizontal Mergers p. 311 I. Reasons for Merging and Implications for Law p. 311 II. Horizontal Merger Law p. 317 III. Conclusion p. 330 Appendix p. 330 16 Mergers, Vertical and Conglomerate p. 333 I. Vertical Mergers p. 333 II. Conglomerate Mergers p. 344 III. Concluding Remarks p. 351 17 Antitrust and the State p. 352 I. Noerr-Pennington Doctrine p. 354 II. Parker Doctrine p. 371 III. Some Final Comments: Error Costs and Immunity Doctrines p. 375 Index p. 379.

U.S. Antitrust Law and Enforcement provides readers with an updated unique and straight-forward introduction to United States antitrust law. This book delivers a one-stop introduction to the entire field of antitrust law and practice, allowing law firm and in-house practitioners who do not specialize in antitrust, foreign attorneys, newly-minted lawyers, and law students to quickly gain an understanding of the wide variety of issues and policies affected by U.S. antitrust laws. The Second Edition features new Supreme Court decisions as well as analyses of important revisions to the Merger Guidelines used by the federal antitrust enforcement agencies and to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Rules and the premerger notification report form. U.S. Antitrust Law and Enforcement helps attorneys develop the ability to spot and analyze antitrust law issues by providing an approachable overview of the statutes and regulations that make up the law, the leading Supreme Court decisions that create the framework for analysis found in lower court cases, the elements that must be proved to make out a claim under the various antitrust laws, and the guidelines and policy statements that describe antitrust enforcement at the federal agency level.

A less-expensive grayscale paperback version is available. Search for ISBN 9781680923018. Business Law I Essentials is a brief introductory textbook designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of courses on Business Law or the Legal Environment of Business. The concepts are presented in a streamlined manner, and cover the key concepts necessary to establish a strong foundation in the subject. The textbook follows a traditional approach to the study of business law. Each chapter contains learning objectives, explanatory narrative and concepts, references for further reading, and end-of-chapter questions. Business Law I Essentials may need to be supplemented with additional content, cases, or related materials, and is offered as a foundational resource that focuses on the baseline concepts, issues, and approaches.

This text provides a comprehensive and succinct treatment of the history, structure, and behaviour of the various US institutions that enforce antitrust laws. It also draws comparisons with the structure of institutional enforcement outside the US, and it considers the possibility of creating international antitrust institutions.

General While there is an abundance of literature dealing with the American antitrust laws, one can also observe that the application of this area of the law to foreign commerce is still in an evolutionary stage of development. To some extent this can be quantiflably explained by pointing out that the rapid rise of the interests of the American business community in foreign commerce is only a fairly recent 1 phenomenon. This participatory interest reveals a wide spectrum of commercial activities. While the traditional concept of foreign commerce was often limited to thinking in terms of exports and imports, present commercial activities include also such marketing methods as the establishment of foreign branches or subsidiaries, or 2 the location of manufacturing, processing, or assembly plants abroad. To this array of arrangements, most of which contemplate a widening of the market potential, we may add the current merger movement, the conglomerate charac ter of which has been termed its 'most unique characteristic,. 3 Little wonder that at least one author refers to the application of the 311titrust laws to foreign commerce as being still somewhat of a 'frontier area of the law'. 4 Because of the rapidly expanding participation of the American business community in interna tional commerce a gradual evolution of the international dimensions of the American antitrust laws seems therefore within the realm of justifIed expecta tions.