Tag: Antitrust Law

Occupy Wall Street and Antitrust – Postscript (Response) by Maurice E. Stucke

From Volume 85, Number 3 (March 2012)
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Even its more stalwart defenders are concerned that capitalism is in crisis. Alan Greenspan conceded a “flaw” in his free-market beliefs. The Financial Times, in 2012, invited Arundhati Roy and Occupy Wall Street to share a dialogue with high-level officials and leading economists over the crisis in capitalism.

The crisis in capitalism might have come as a shock to some, but not to many middle- and lower-income households. Well before 2008, middle-class Americans saw little gains in income, despite gains in productivity. When mass unemployment came, the middle class shrank further. America’s social net, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders described in his historic speech, is threadbare. America’s infrastructure is crumbling. Primary and secondary education for many families is inadequate. Incarcerations, home foreclosures, underwater mortgages, the number of people in poverty, and the public’s dissatisfaction with Congress are at record highs. With America’s debt in the trillions of dollars, a larger fiscal crisis looms. Many Americans in 2012 were dissatisfied with the United States’ moral and ethical climate (68 percent surveyed), the federal government’s size and power (69 percent), and the state of America’s economy (83 percent). Given the dissatisfaction, it is a wonder why more people are not protesting.

 

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Format War, Antitrust Casualties: The Sherman Act and the Blu-Ray–HD DVD Format War – Note by Kevin L. Spark

From Volume 83, Number 1 (November 2009)
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For several years, HD DVD and Blu-ray competed to replace DVD and become the next-generation movie disc format. The battle was not fought with technological superiority but instead with exclusivity contracts. This Note analyzes whether these contracts violated the Sherman Antitrust Act (“Sherman Act”).

 

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Rebuilding Illinois Brick: A Functionalist Approach to the Indirect Purchaser Rule – Article by Barak D. Richman & Christopher R. Murray

From Volume 81, Number 1 (November 2007)
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The landmark case of Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, which denied standing to indirect purchasers to sue antitrust violators, has been subjected to steady and widespread criticism since it was decided in 1977. Despite three decades of dissatisfaction, however, debate over indirect purchaser standing has failed to generate satisfying solutions that meet the objectives of antitrust law and reflect its underlying principles. We attribute the lack of creative alternatives to an undue emphasis on legal formalism, fostered both by the Supreme Court’s elaboration of the indirect purchaser rule and the doctrine’s failure to recognize the pervasiveness of multilayer supply chains. In this Article, we argue for a return to functionalist antitrust objectives. We review the development of the doctrine, explain its descent into formalism, identify its significant shortcomings, and offer a comprehensive framework that addresses the difficult problem of antitrust standing. Building off that framework, and drawing on lessons from securities law, we propose a mechanism that opens antitrust suits to indirect purchasers, consolidates multiple claims into a single proceeding, and designates a presumptive lead plaintiff. Such a mechanism will enhance the impact of underenforced antitrust laws, restore compensation to injured parties, and reduce the administrative and agency costs of parallel litigation.

 

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