Author: David B. AudretschPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antitrust law
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
An Evaluation of Horizontal Merger Enforcement
Author: David B. AudretschPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antitrust law
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
How the Chicago School Overshot the Mark
Author: Robert PitofskyPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199706751
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
How the Chicago School Overshot the Mark is about the rise and recent fall of American antitrust. It is a collection of 15 essays, almost all expressing a deep concern that conservative economic analysis is leading judges and enforcement officials toward an approach that will ultimately harm consumer welfare. For the past 40 years or so, U.S. antitrust has been dominated intellectually by an unusually conservative style of economic analysis. Its advocates, often referred to as "The Chicago School," argue that the free market (better than any unelected band of regulators) can do a better job of achieving efficiency and encouraging innovation than intrusive regulation. The cutting edge of Chicago School doctrine originated in academia and was popularized in books by brilliant and innovative law professors like Robert Bork and Richard Posner. Oddly, a response to that kind of conservative doctrine may be put together through collections of scores of articles but until now cannot be found in any one book. This collection of essays is designed in part to remedy that situation. The chapters in this book were written by academics, former law enforcers, private sector defense lawyers, Republicans and Democrats, representatives of the left, right and center. Virtually all agree that antitrust enforcement today is better as a result of conservative analysis, but virtually all also agree that there have been examples of extreme interpretations and misinterpretations of conservative economic theory that have led American antitrust in the wrong direction. The problem is not with conservative economic analysis but with those portions of that analysis that have "overshot the mark" producing an enforcement approach that is exceptionally generous to the private sector. If the scores of practices that traditionally have been regarded as anticompetitive are ignored, or not subjected to vigorous enforcement, prices will be higher, quality of products lower, and innovation diminished. In the end consumers will pay.
Reinvigorating Horizontal Merger Enforcement
Author: Jonathan B. BakerPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 59
Book Description
The past forty years have witnessed a remarkable transformation in horizontal merger enforcement in the United States. With no change in the underlying statute, the Clayton Act, the weight given to market concentration by the federal courts and by the federal antitrust agencies has declined dramatically. Instead, increasing weight has been given to three arguments often made by merging firms in their defense: entry, expansion and efficiencies. We document this shift and provide examples where courts have approved highly concentrating mergers based on limited evidence of entry and expansion. We show using merger enforcement data and a survey we conducted of merger practitioners that the decline in antitrust enforcement is ongoing, especially at the current Justice Department. We then argue in favor of reinvigorating horizontal merger enforcement by partially restoring the structural presumption and by requiring strong evidence to overcome the government's prima facie case. We propose several routes by which the government can establish its prima facie case, distinguishing between cases involving coordinated vs. unilateral anti-competitive effects.
Horizontal Merger Guidelines
Author: U. S. Department U.S. Department of JusticePublisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781544654577
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 38
Book Description
These Guidelines outline the principal analytical techniques, practices, and the enforcement policy of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (the "Agencies") with respect to mergers and acquisitions involving actual or potential competitors ("horizontal mergers") under the federal antitrust laws. The relevant statutory provisions include Section 7 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 18, Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2, and Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45. Most particularly, Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers if "in any line of commerce or in any activity affecting commerce in any section of the country, the effect of such acquisition may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly." The Agencies seek to identify and challenge competitively harmful mergers while avoiding unnecessary interference with mergers that are either competitively beneficial or neutral. Most merger analysis is necessarily predictive, requiring an assessment of what will likely happen if a merger proceeds as compared to what will likely happen if it does not. Given this inherent need for prediction, these Guidelines reflect the congressional intent that merger enforcement should interdict competitive problems in their incipiency and that certainty about anticompetitive effect is seldom possible and not required for a merger to be illegal.
The 1992 Horizontal Merger Guidelines
Author: American Bar Association. Section of Antitrust LawPublisher: American Bar Association
ISBN: 9780897077644
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 72
Book Description
Assessing the Quality of Competition Policy
Author: William E. KovacicPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antitrust law
Languages : en
Pages : 22
Book Description
The Economic Assessment of Mergers Under European Competition Law
Author: Daniel GorePublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107007720
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 559
Book Description
Provides a clear, concise and practical overview of the key economic techniques and evidence employed in European merger control.
Horizontal Merger Antitrust Enforcement
Author: Lawrence J. WhitePublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The DOJ-FTC Merger Guidelines were developed for and best deal with horizontal mergers where the theory of harm is coordinated effects. The Guidelines deal awkwardly, at best, with mergers where the theory of harm is unilateral effects. The broad body of evidence - from profitability studies, from pricing studies, and from auction studies - indicates that seller concentration matters. But these studies do not provide adequate guidance as to whether current antitrust enforcement is too strict or too lenient with respect to mergers. Research on the consequences of the close call mergers that were not challenged might well provide such guidance, as might a meta analysis of the extant price-concentration studies. New procedures are needed for inquiry and enforcement where the theory of harm is unilateral effects, as is a market definition paradigm for monopolization cases.
An Antitrust Guide for Trade Association Professionals and Members
Author: Publisher: American Bar Association
ISBN: 9781590312254
Category : Antitrust law
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
Revising the U.S. Vertical Merger Guidelines
Author: Steven C. SalopPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
Mergers and acquisitions are a major component of antitrust law and practice. The U.S. antitrust agencies spend a majority of their time on merger enforcement. The focus of most merger review at the agencies involves horizontal mergers, that is, mergers among firms that compete at the same level of production or distribution.Vertical mergers combine firms at different levels of production or distribution. In the simplest case, a vertical merger joins together a firm that produces an input (and competes in an input market) with a firm that uses that input to produce output (and competes in an output market).Over the years, the agencies have issued Merger Guidelines that outline the type of analysis carried out by the agencies and the agencies' enforcement intentions in light of state of the law. These Guidelines are used by agency staff in evaluating mergers, as well as by outside counsel and the courts.Guidelines for vertical mergers were issued in 1968 and revised in 1984. However, the Vertical Merger Guidelines have not been revised since 1984. Those Guidelines are now woefully out of date. They do not reflect current economic thinking about vertical mergers. Nor do they reflect current agency practice. Nor do they reflect the analytic approach taken in the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines. As a result, practitioners and firms lack the benefits of up-to-date guidance from the U.S. enforcement agencies.