Download Free Vertical Restraints Antitrust Policy Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Vertical Restraints Antitrust Policy and write the review.

A Brookings Institution Press and American Enterprise Institute publication Antitrust law is intended to protect consumer welfare and foster competition. At first glance, however, it is often unclear whether certain business practices have positive or detrimental effects. Businesses frequently engage in activities that may appear anticompetitive on the surface, but are actually beneficial to consumers. Business tying practices, for example, make the sale of one product conditional upon the sale of another product. This practice can either deprive consumers of choice and drive up prices or lower costs and improve convenience. Therefore, it is critical that policymakers have a keen understanding of which vertical restraints—limitations imposed on businesses by firms located in the production chain—are likely to harm consumers more than they benefit competition. In order to formulate economically efficient policies, they must be able to identify and limit those practices that are likely to do more harm than good. In Antitrust Policy and Vertical Restraints a group of leading scholars takes a hard look at how restraints limit the conditions under which firms may purchase, sell, or resell a good or service. The authors, representing both sides of the antitrust debate over tying practices, provide a uniquely broad perspective on this critical economic policy issue. Contributors include Dennis Carlton (University of Chicago), David Evans (University College London), Bruce Kobayashi (George Mason University), and Michael Waldman (Cornell University).
Antitrust law is intended to protect consumer welfare and foster competition. At first glance, however, it is often unclear whether certain business practices have positive or detrimental effects. Some activities that appear anticompetitive can actually prove beneficial to consumers. In Antitrust Policy and Vertical Restraints leading law and economics scholars take a hard look at how vertical restraints limit the conditions under which firms may purchase, sell, or resell a good or service. Vertical restraints can be defined as any arrangement between firms operating at different levels of the manufacturing or distribution chain that restricts the conditions under which such firms may purchase, sell, or resell. Business tying and bundling practices, as one example, often come under scrutiny for depriving consumers of choice and driving up prices. In practice, however, bundling can lower costs and increase convenience. In order to formulate efficient policy, we must be able to identify and limit those practices that are likely to do more harm than good. It is critical that policymakers and analysts know which vertical restraints are likely to harm consumers more than they benefit competition. The authors, representing both sides of the debate over tying practices, provide a broad and informed perspective on this important issue.
Vertical agreements between undertakings at the various levels of a supply chain have long been seen as a fundamental focus for antitrust legislation, such as the European Union’s Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER). It goes without saying that such issues are particularly prevalent in digital markets. This authoritative commentary analyses the main restrictions in vertical agreements, emphasising the numerous new and contentious issues arising in the context of Internet distribution. It offers both legal and economic perspectives, as well as examines enforcement and possible changes to the legislation. The contributors – leading competition authority officials, lawyers, economists, and academics – provide in-depth discussions of topics that have emerged as areas for conscious policy choices, including the following: restrictions of online sales; price parity obligations; resale price maintenance; the duration of non-compete obligations; sustainability agreements; geo-blocking practices; and restraint of trade in pharmaceuticals. The contributions have emerged from the 2020 conference of the Global Competition Law Centre at the College of Europe in the context of the currently ongoing review of the VBER and vertical guidelines. With its multidisciplinary approach highlighting the efficiencies and harms caused by the restrictions at stake, this important book clearly shows how law and practice apply to specific issues relating to digital markets and how the law is likely to change in the near future. It will be of immeasurable value to lawyers and officials concerned with European competition law and academics in the field.
Market dominance - encompassing single firm dominance, overt and tacit collusion, mergers and vertical restraints - raises many complex analytical and policy issues, all of which continue to be the subject of theoretical research and policy reform. This second edition of a popular and comprehensive text extends the arguments and combines an analysis of the issues with a discussion of actual policy and case studies. This new edition addresses the recent fundamental changes in antitrust law, especially in the UK and the EU, and reviews some high profile and controversial cases such as the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger and the Microsoft monopoly. The author moves on to deal with several unresolved questions including the conflicts between trade and antitrust policy, the foreign take-over of domestic assets and extra-territorial claims made by certain countries.
This book focuses on the current legal framework for vertical agreements in the EU and the US. Over the last ten years, antitrust rules governing these agreements have undergone thorough reform. In the EU, the old sector-specific block exemptions were replaced by Regulation 2790/99, applicable to all sectors of the economy. In addition, changes introduced to the procedural rules have led to the decentralisation of Article 81(3) and the removal of the notification requirement. In like manner, in the US the Supreme Court has gradually taken vertical restraints out of the per se illegality rule. What Sylvania achieved in placing non-price vertical restraints under the rule of reason in the late 1970s, the Khan judgment did for maximum resale price maintenance in 1997, whilst most recently and most significantly in 2007 the Leegin case followed suit for minimum resale price maintenance. The book is divided into four chapters. The first chapter considers the 'double nature' of vertical agreements and the regulatory dilemma. The second chapter explores the most influential economic theories underpinning current regulatory frameworks, and how these theories shape antitrust policy. The third chapter questions the adequacy of the current economic analysis in recent EU and US legislation and court decisions. The fourth chapter analyses how this maturing economic analysis can be reconciled with what commentators and regulators have identified as a key role for competition policy, redressing assumed imbalances between dealers and manufacturers. The author concludes by querying the prevailing logic of protecting sectoral interests above the competitive process.
This treatise discusses the principal antitrust cases so readers can review precise holdings and fact summaries about each major case. It also includes black letter law and an analysis of current doctrine and trends in the law. Topics include the goals of antitrust law, the development of the Law of Contracts in restraint of trade, market structure and monopoly power, agreements among competitors, vertical restraints, price discrimination, mergers, and anticompetitive harm through governmental action.
In this outstanding new book Professor Keith Hylton and his collaborators examine what antitrust law has become over the past ten years, a time in which economic analysis has become its undisputed core. What has become of the old antitrust doctrine, what are the new issues for the immediate future? This book brings together the leading experts to examine this silent revolution at the core of US domestic policy. Mark Grady, UCLA School of Law, US Hylton s Antitrust Law and Economics brings together many of the best authors writing in antitrust today. Their essays range widely, covering proof of agreement under the Sherman Act, group boycotts, monopolization and essential facilities, tying and other vertical restraints, and merger policy. The writing is clear, accessible but still technically sophisticated and comprehensive. This book represents the best in contemporary antitrust scholarship, by authors who understand and are able to communicate the centrality of economic analysis to antitrust. No antitrust lawyer, serious antitrust student, or antitrust economist should be without this book. Herbert Hovenkamp, University of Iowa College of Law, US This comprehensive book provides an extensive overview of the major topics of antitrust law from an economic perspective. Its in-depth treatment and analysis of both the law and economics of antitrust is presented via a collection of interconnected original essays. The contributing authors are among the most influential scholars in antitrust, with a rich diversity of backgrounds. Their entries cover, amongst other issues, predatory pricing, essential facilities, tying, vertical restraints, enforcement, mergers, market power, monopolization standards, and facilitating practices. This well-organized and substantial work will be invaluable to professors of American antitrust law and European competition law, as well as students specializing in competition law. It will also be an important reference for professors and graduate students of economics and business.
Theoretical discussions among competition lawyers and economists on the approach to Resale resale Price price Maintenance maintenance (RPM) and Vertical vertical Territorial territorial Restrictions restrictions (VTR) have often caused controversy. However, commentators agree that there is a lack of comprehensive study surrounding the topic. This book explores these two forms of anticompetitive conduct from legal, historical, economical, and theoretical points of view, focusing on the EU and US experiences. The author expertly goes beyond the current legal practice to explain, among other things, what approach should apply to RPM and VTR, and why RPM and VTR are introduced in situations where procompetitive theories would not make economic sense, or do not apply in practice. The book takes account of economic values, such as efficiency and welfare, as well as other values, such as freedom, fairness and free competition. Scholars and students of law will find the book’s depth of legal, economic and historical analysis to be a rich contribution to the scholarship. This book will also be of use to EU and US practitioners, and enforcers dealing with RPM and VTR cases.
Preface p. xi 1 Economics p. 1 I. Definitions p. 1 II. Perfect Competition Versus Monopoly p. 9 III. Further Topics p. 21 2 Law and Policy p. 27 I. Some Interpretation Issues p. 28 II. Enacting the Antitrust Law p. 30 III. What Should Antitrust Law Aim to Do? p. 40 3 Enforcement p. 43 I. Optimal Enforcement Theory p. 43 II. Enforcement Provision of the Antitrust Laws p. 47 Appendix p. 64 4 Cartels p. 68 I. Cartels p. 68 II. Conscious Parallelism p. 73 III. Conclusion p. 89 5 Development of Section 1 Doctrine p. 90 I. The Sherman Act Versus the Common Law p. 90 II. Rule of Reason and Per-Se Rule p. 104 III. Conclusion p. 112 6 Rule of Reason and Per-Se Rule p. 113 I. The Case for Price Fixing p. 113 II. Per-Se and Rule of Reason Analysis: Further Developments p. 116 III. Per-Se Versus Rule of Reason Tests: Understanding the Supreme Court's Justification for the Per-Se Rule p. 129 7 Agreement p. 132 I. The Development of Inference Doctrine p. 133 II. Rejection of Unilateral Contract Theory p. 140 8 Facilitating Mechanisms p. 144 I. Data Dissemination Cases p. 145 II. Basing Point Pricing and Related Practices p. 154 III. Basing Point Pricing: Economics p. 160 9 Boycotts p. 166 I. Pre-Socony p. 166 II. Post-Socony p. 170 III. Post-BMI/Sylvania p. 181 IV. Conclusion p. 184 10 Monopolization p. 186 I. Development of Section 2 Doctrine p. 186 II. Leveraging and Essential Facility Cases p. 202 III. Predatory Pricing p. 212 IV. Conclusion p. 228 11 Power p. 230 I. Measuring Market Power p. 230 II. Determinants of Market Power p. 235 III. Substitutability and the Relevant Market: Cellophane p. 237 IV. Multimarket Monopoly and the Relevant Market: Alcoa p. 239 V. Measuring Power: Guidelines p. 243 12 Attempts p. 244 I. The Swift Formula and Modern Doctrine p. 244 II. Dangerous Probability Requirement p. 248 13 Vertical Restraints p. 252 I. Resale Price Maintenance p. 252 II. Vertical Nonprice Restraints p. 262 III. Manufacturer Retains Title p. 267 IV. Agreement p. 270 14 Tying and Exclusive Dealing p. 279 I. Introduction p. 279 II. Early Cases p. 284 III. Development of Per-Se Rule p. 286 IV. Tension Between Rule of Reason Arguments and Per-Se Rule p. 295 V. Technological Tying p. 301 VI. Exclusive Dealing p. 303 Appendix p. 307 15 Horizontal Mergers p. 311 I. Reasons for Merging and Implications for Law p. 311 II. Horizontal Merger Law p. 317 III. Conclusion p. 330 Appendix p. 330 16 Mergers, Vertical and Conglomerate p. 333 I. Vertical Mergers p. 333 II. Conglomerate Mergers p. 344 III. Concluding Remarks p. 351 17 Antitrust and the State p. 352 I. Noerr-Pennington Doctrine p. 354 II. Parker Doctrine p. 371 III. Some Final Comments: Error Costs and Immunity Doctrines p. 375 Index p. 379.