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Blog o’ Blogs March

By  |  March 29, 2018
Blog o’ Blogs March

Springtime rolls into the world of Antitrust with exciting (and some worrying) developments on several fronts and across industries, as the International community nears maturity and growing pains continue. Chinese developments are sure to cause a future splash as agencies’ roles shift; a similar ‘flexing of muscles’ in the US antitrust system could provide much to study and observe, and the saga continues for a number of chronically-embattled tech giants…

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    How an Amicus Brief Can Win an Appeal
    Economists are endemic to antitrust litigation.  Their expertise is often necessary to explain why the conduct or merger at issue will have no impact (or a huge impact!) on competition in a market…
    Jake Walter-Warner & Jonathan H. Hatch (Antitrust Update)

    Abuse of contractual power à la Polonaise – from facts to fairness?
    The Act on Combating the Unfair Use of Contractual Advantage in the Trade in Agricultural and Food Products (the “Act”) entered into force on July 12th, 2017. Its essential goal is to eliminate unfair market practices from every stage of the food product supply chain…
    Aleksander Stawicki (UEA Competition Policy Blog)

    Soylent Analytica: The Graph is too Damn Open
    The world discovered something this past weekend that the world had already known: that what you say on the Internet stays on the Internet, spread intractably and untraceably through the tendrils of social media. I refer, of course, to the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook SNAFU…
    Gus Hurwitz (Truth on the Market)
    China to Merge Antitrust Authorities
    Over the past weekend, the Chinese legislature decided on a major restructuring of governmental agencies – with a profound impact on antitrust enforcement in the country…
    Adrian Emch (Antitrust Connect/Hogan Lovells)
    Lithium Ion Batteries, Indirect Purchaser Antitrust Class Actions, and the Reality of Pricing
    It isn’t easy to be an indirect purchaser antitrust class action plaintiff. Not only do you have to satisfy the difficult standards for class certification (discussed here), but you also have to prove that the direct purchasers passed on an overcharge from defendants’ alleged anticompetitive conduct.
    Jarod Bona (The Antitrust Attorney)
    India – Matrimony.com v. Google: A Cat on the Wall Approach to Intervening in the Expanding Digital Space
    In its decision passed on February 8, 2018 the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed a fine of INR 135.86 crores (approximately $1.36 bn) on Google for abusing its dominant position…
    Sahithya Muralidharan (Kluwer Competition)
    The International Competition Network at Seventeen
    Last week I attended the 17th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network(ICN) held in New Delhi, India from March 21-23.  The Delhi Conference highlighted the key role of the ICN in promoting global convergence toward “best practices” in substantive and procedural antitrust analysis by national antitrust (“competition”) agencies.
    AldenAbbott (Truth on the Market)
    Why the Government Shouldn’t Break Up Google
    There’s little evidence Google is ill-serving its customers. So what’s the problem? Has Google’s market dominance been a net negative for consumers and innovation—and should government antitrust regulators intervene?
    Andrea O’Sullivan (Reason)
    Senior Executive Type B Amnesty Redux — A Rare Correction From DOJ (Or Not?)
    Last year, as noted in this blog, the Antitrust Division issued one of its fairly rare but critically important “Frequently Asked Questions” publications concerning its Amnesty Program.
    James L. McGinnis (Antitrust Law Blog/Shepard Mullins)
    Horizontal mergers and innovation: why I agree with Tommaso Valletti
    Tommaso Valletti is one of the most articulate, thoughtful and entertaining speakers around. So when he takes part in a conference, we can be pretty sure something exciting and topical will have been discussed…
    Pablo Ibanez Colomo (Chiling Competition)
    Should a Judge’s Personal Judicial Experience Affect Antitrust Pleadings?
    When the U.S. Supreme Court scrapped Conley v. Gibson’s “no set of facts” federal pleading standard in Twombly (2007) and Iqbal (2009), courts initially struggled to apply the inherently ambiguous “plausibility” standard…
    Carl Hittinger & Tyson Herrold (Antitrust Advocate)
    EU Merger Control: The Innovation Theory of Harm – The Debate Continues
    It has been just over a year since I last wrote on EU Merger Control and the Innovation Theory of Harm (the ITOH), see here. And what a year it has been….
    Gavin Bushell (Baker Mackenzie/Kluwer Competition)