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Blog O’ Blogs December

By  |  December 23, 2019
On our last look of the year at the snowglobe of the Antitrust Blogosphere, a flurry of articles and notes help give us pause and prepare for the debates that will continue to rage, and some likely to flare up, as we enter the 2020s. Dealing with whistleblower protection will vie with the inexorable rise of artificial intelligence and the handling (and understanding) of data as hot-button issues to keep an eye on. Enforcement and compliance efforts continue to evolve, and the conversation on Big Tech enter a new stage, with enterprises and regulators alike honing their strategies. Enjoy this holiday selection, and get ready for more insightful content in the year to come!

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    Whistleblowing and Criminal Antitrust Cartels: A Primer And Call For Reform
    My former DOJ colleague and whistleblowing writing partner, Kimberly Justice and I published an article in Competition, which has information about handling False Claim Act cases and calls for the Antitrust Division to more actively encourage whistleblowers…
    Robert Connolly  (Cartel Capers)

    Competitive Edge: Underestimating the cost of underenforcing U.S. antitrust laws
    For much of the past three-and-a-half decades, courts across the United States increasingly accepted that strict antitrust rules present far greater dangers than lenient rules… 
    Michael Kades (Competitive Edge)

    Sharing is caring? That depends…
    When should data be shared? Now seems as good a time as any to reflect, as we approach the season of giving, on such a question…
    Wojciech Wiewiórowski (European Data Protection Supervisor)

    Golden Nugget or Poison Pill? ‘Clearly minor’ Breach of EU Law in the Whistleblower Protection Directive
    The decisions made by Member States in the transposition of the Whistleblower Protection Directive may generate significant impacts on public procurement practice in the medium term. However, the likely future effectiveness of the Directive hinges on a problematic discretionary provision…
    Albert Sanchez-Graells 
    (How to Crack a Nut)

    The closest competitor is not the only competitor
    More and more, merging parties argue that their merger does not raise competition concerns because they are not each other’s closest competitors. This argument is not new, and it often misunderstands merger analysis…
    Stephen Mohr (FTC)

    The Invisible Hand, the Regulatory Touch or the Platform’s Iron Grip?
    The ‘invisible hand’ has become an icon for an economic philosophy which assumes that a laissez-faire governmental policy will result in optimal social and financial outcomes…
    Aluma Zernik (Oxford Business Law Blog)

    Ready for California’s New Privacy Law
    We believe companies should be held to a high standard in explaining what data they collect and how they use it, and that people should have robust individual privacy rights no matter where they live…
    FB (Facebook)

    Big Tech and the backwards logic of the neo Brandeisians
    Neo-Brandeisian (NB) antitrust has caught on with many journalists and politicians. Its backwards logic will harm consumers and American businesses if it plays out in actual antitrust actions…
    Mark Jamison (AEI)

    The Times’ Elastic Conception of Monopoly
    As I have been arguing for some time now, the press’s antitrust crusade against Amazon, Google, and Facebook is about protecting competitors, not competition…
    Ramsi Woodcock (What Am I Missing?)

    Implications of Financial Artificial Intelligence
    Despite all the significant benefits made possible by financial artificial intelligence, it also presents serious risks and implications for law, business, and society…
    Tom Lin (Oxford Business Law Blog)

    Winds of Change? DOJ approach to compliance & lessons for South Africa
    In the ancient game of Go, players compete by placing stones on a grid board with the goal of enclosing the greatest amount of territory with their stones. Think of the board as a two-dimension product space…
    Jemma Muller (Africa Antitrust)

    A letter from Larry and Sergey
    Our very first founders’ letter in our 2004 S-1 began: “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one. Throughout Google’s evolution as a privately held company, we have managed Google differently…
    Larry Page & Sergey Brin
    (Alphabet)

    Baseball and the Antitrust Laws Part IV: Baseball’s Antitrust Exemption
    This article—the fourth in a series—addresses some of the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in Federal Baseball Club v. National League, where the Court unanimously held that federal antitrust laws did not apply to professional baseball…
    Luke Hasskamp (The Antitrust Attorney)

    Indispensability and abuse of dominance: from Commercial Solvents to Slovak Telekom and Google Shopping
    Under certain circumstances, Article 102 TFEU can only be triggered if it can be shown that an input or platform is indispensable for competition on a neighbouring market. There is some controversy, however, about what these circumstances are…
    Pablo Ibanez Colomo 
    (Chilling Competition    )