Natasha The Great, here.
Monday, July 31, 2023
Friday, July 28, 2023
History Suggests Economists Need To Think Precisely About Populism
A. De Bromhead, K. O'Rourke, here.
Thursday, July 27, 2023
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Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Why We’re Updating the Government’s Merger Guidelines
J. Kanter, L. Kahn, WSJ (of all places), here.
"When markets are competitive and companies jostle to win business, everyone benefits. Consumers pay lower prices and get better service. Workers have more options to earn higher wages and get better working conditions. And we all benefit from the breakthrough innovations and diverse views that flourish when markets are open and the best ideas win.
More than a century ago, Congress set out to protect free and fair competition by passing antitrust laws. These laws prohibit mergers that may harm competition, while permitting those that don’t. As federal antitrust enforcers, we want our approach to be clear and predictable. Since 1968, our agencies have issued guidelines to explain how we assess whether mergers might hurt competition.
The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have updated the merger guidelines to reflect an evolving economy several times, under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, Obama and Trump. We are continuing that tradition. Our proposed guidelines are faithful to the legal principles that have guided our enforcement efforts for generations. They recognize that firms can compete in a variety of ways and lay out the different ways that mergers may threaten competition.
The guidelines are written to be understood by businesses, consumers, entrepreneurs, workers and the broader public. We focused on three goals while drafting them.
First, as federal antitrust enforcers, we are bound by the antitrust laws as written by Congress and interpreted by the Supreme Court. The Clayton Act of 1914 prohibits any merger that may substantially reduce competition or tend to create a monopoly. Time and again since then—from expanding the Clayton Act to address a broader range of transactions to requiring that companies notify the government in advance of large mergers—Congress has closed loopholes and offered antitrust enforcers and private citizens more tools to stop anticompetitive mergers.
Recognizing Congress’s clear commands, more than a century of Supreme Court and appellate precedent makes clear that the antitrust laws protect the public from mergers that let dominant firms further control a market or create choke points in the economy. To ensure that our approach to merger review is faithful to the law, the proposed guidelines include—for the first time—legal citations to Supreme Court cases.
Second, enduring antitrust legal principles must be applied to today’s markets, reflecting how companies operate, compete and grow in the 21st century. To make sure we understand these changes, our proposed merger guidelines encompass the insights of modern analytical tools, taking into account market realities.
Third, we have written the draft guidelines with the broader public, not only antitrust experts, in mind. This makes it easier for businesses and individuals to understand the risk that a merger or acquisition may lead to an antitrust investigation and, where warranted, a lawsuit. But the proposed merger guidelines don’t create rights or responsibilities, nor are they substitutes for the law itself.
The proposed merger guidelines are the result of a public request for information issued in January 2022. We received more than 5,000 comments—from businesses, individuals, farmers, nurses, pharmacists, consumer advocates, worker organizations, antitrust practitioners, academics and trade associations. During four listening sessions, we heard about the effects of mergers and acquisitions on different sectors, which helped us understand how mergers can undermine open markets.
Our work isn’t done. We encourage the public to read the proposed merger guidelines and share its views at regulations.gov. The deadline to comment is Sept. 18. Our agencies will read and reflect on these comments before issuing final merger guidelines.
Congress tasked us with faithfully enforcing the antitrust laws to promote open, resilient markets. By updating the merger guidelines we hope to propel American ingenuity and ensure that the best ideas win.
Monday, July 24, 2023
Friday, July 21, 2023
Thursday, July 20, 2023
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Wednesday, July 19, 2023
Tuesday, July 18, 2023
« Charles River Associates s’est déclaré « fier » de la nomination de sa « consultante de haut niveau Fiona Scott Morton ». Faut-il s’en inquiéter ? »
You can bet they were also very proud of all their CRA consultants nominated for the latest so called Antitrust Writing Awards, here.
Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Gen AI & Market Power: What Role for Antitrust Regulators?
Amazing webinar, just ended.
A couple of immediate reactions to what we heard. It appears everyone is still in research mode, which is perfectly acceptable. However, there's already some serious musing afoot, particularly from the cloud services sector perspective (Adlc here, an overview here, if I may). What Big Tech firms are up to is also quite obvious. Well, what's next?
Starting from the recognition that generative AI makes all much, much worse and much more difficult (Andreas Mundt, - 19a and the NCT could come very handy, of course), do we sit on our hands, awaiting one monopolist to be swapped out for "another" (best-case scenario, as suggested by Joshua Gans)? Do we carve out tiny oases of diversity, try to preserve those famous windows of opportunity, cherish those few cracks that might just open up and observe from the sidelines (Susan Athey)? Do we attempt to grab the bull by the horns, seeking to shift the direction of innovation (Daron Acemoglu, with suggestions on how to do so, from AI regulation to tax rules)? Or are we temped to surrender to a sense of discouragement (Tommaso Valletti - not alone)?
Update: The recording is now available here, and Ian Brown has some in-depth tweets (yes, you also can) on the discussion, all unrolled here.
Überprüfung einer Bestpreisklausel – Bundeskartellamt stellt Verfahren gegen Lieferando ein
Bundeskartellamt, hier.
("Anlass für das Verfahren war die Überprüfung einer Bestpreisklausel in den Allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen (AGB) von Lieferando gegenüber Restaurants. Dieser zufolge müssen die auf Lieferando geforderten Preise den Preisen in den eigenen Vertriebskanälen der Restaurants entsprechen")
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
A very public, successful job interview, for a while.
FSM "resigned", as you heard coming back to shore.
This is now for the archives:
[BTW
- her very clear position on interoperability is encouraging :) here;
- her very clear position on interoperability is encouraging :) here;
- the Amazon/iRobot merger in-depth investigation following the Meta ruling is going to be very interesting (but can she say anything about it as former Amazon consultant? How many years ago was it?);
- her Consultant's stance on cloud gaming being "a nascent technology that does not yet have a compelling use case" is hopefully correct;
- wondering if this roadmap could be of any use now;
- with addictive technologies aplenty, what has antitrust ever done for us?
- Q: has there ever been an EU Chief Competition Economist who was not a CRA consultant? A: Yes!]]
Review of the Digital Markets, Consumer and Competition Bill
UK Parliament, here (oral evidence).
CMA Video, from 14:29:20
Potential addressees 20 June 2023 - Review of the Digital Markets, Consumer and Competition Bill - Oral evidence - Committees - UK Parliamentideo Parliamentlive.tv - Communications and Digital Committee
Furman, Marsden; Fletcher Parliamentlive.tv - Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill
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(Over)simplifying the "AI control" debate?
Waiting to read Meredith Whittaker & Co-authors on this.
Monday, July 10, 2023
CJEU ruling on Meta referral could close the chapter on surveillance capitalism
Natasha The Great, here.
Tesla and Chinese EV Giants: short lived price collusion
In a display of the finest irony, 16 automakers in China, including industry powerhouses like Tesla and BYD, last week committed to a pledge of fair competition and "normal" pricing, only to retract during the weekend as somebody finally realized that it contradicted China's anti-monopoly laws. EV-edition, here.
The FTC’s biggest AI enforcement tool? Forcing companies to delete their algorithms
Model deletion, while not new, has seen increased use as a deterrent. It hits at the core of a company's business model, rather than simply imposing fines, which can be seen as mere slaps on the wrist for big tech companies. Cyberscoop, here.
UK Approach to LLMs: Call for evidence
The Committee is seeking evidence on several topics, including future trends of LLMs, associated opportunities and risks, domestic regulation, the adequacy of the UK’s regulatory capacity, possible non-regulatory and regulatory options, and comparisons with international approaches. UK Parliament, here.
Saturday, July 08, 2023
A Chinese DMA?
Yesterday, I had the pleasure to teach a 90-minute class on the DMA for Chinese competition officials. Despite a) being just after lunch b) enticing weather outside c) lovely but consecutive interpretation slowing down things a lot, I enjoyed the opportunity to provide an overview of this amazing ;-) regulatory tool. I think they felt my enthousiasm (but I very much doubt they directly shared it) and there were some interesting, intriguing questions. Let‘s wait and see…
Sunday, July 02, 2023
Saturday, July 01, 2023
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Full of amazing panels, you just have to watch them all - over the coming weeks and months, also because they'll even get better with ti... -
M. Vestager, here . Letta Report here . Draghi's Géopolitiques Article here .
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Video soon available here .
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ECA, video here