IPcentral Weblog
  The DACA Blog

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

 
Modernizing Antitrust Gives Easterbrook "the Willies"
(previous | next)
 

The Federalist Society sponsored a panel today on Antitrust Modernization and Public Choice. Judge Easterbrook, former antitrust chief Douglas Melamed and FTC General Counsel William Kovacic generally agreed that the "Antitrust Modernization Commission" shouldn't have much work to do.

Judge Easterbrook noted that "modernization" implies that there is a need to craft special rules for emerging technologies, but that industry-specific rules should be avoided at all costs. Instead, if there's a shortcoming in the antitrust laws, that should be fixed across-the-board. Much of his talk was a refresher of his classic article, The Limits of Antitrust.

Kovacic discussed the interplay between public choice and institutional design, recommending that agencies look at the use of self-limiting principles (such as merger guidelines), efforts to increase transparency (e.g., committing to explain decisions not to prosecute after antitrust investigations are complete), ex post reassessment of completed matters, and heavy investments in both offensive and defensive advocacy. Or, much of what the FTC has been doing.

Melamed warned the Modernization Commission to stay away from addressing questions involving the substance of antitrust law, such as overruling Trinko v. Verizon. He noted that these issues would be: (1) intensely politicized, and (2) better left to the common law process, as our understanding of the underlying economic principles behind antitrust changes over time.

On the whole, as the old saying goes: If it is not broken, then there is no need to repair it.

posted by @ 5:24 PM | Antitrust & Competition Policy

Share |

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly

Post a Comment:





 
Blog Main
RSS Feed  
Recent Posts
  EFF-PFF Amicus Brief in Schwarzenegger v. EMA Supreme Court Videogame Violence Case
New OECD Study Finds That Improved IPR Protections Benefit Developing Countries
Hubris, Cowardice, File-sharing, and TechDirt
iPhones, DRM, and Doom-Mongers
"Rogue Archivist" Carl Malamud On How to Fix Gov2.0
Coping with Information Overload: Thoughts on Hamlet's BlackBerry by William Powers
How Many Times Has Michael "Dr. Doom" Copps Forecast an Internet Apocalypse?
Google / Verizon Proposal May Be Important Compromise, But Regulatory Trajectory Concerns Many
Two Schools of Internet Pessimism
GAO: Wireless Prices Plummeting; Public Knowledge: We Must Regulate!
Archives by Month
  September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
  - (see all)
Archives by Topic
  - A La Carte
- Add category
- Advertising & Marketing
- Antitrust & Competition Policy
- Appleplectics
- Books & Book Reviews
- Broadband
- Cable
- Campaign Finance Law
- Capitalism
- Capitol Hill
- China
- Commons
- Communications
- Copyright
- Cutting the Video Cord
- Cyber-Security
- DACA
- Digital Americas
- Digital Europe
- Digital Europe 2006
- Digital TV
- E-commerce
- e-Government & Transparency
- Economics
- Education
- Electricity
- Energy
- Events
- Exaflood
- Free Speech
- Gambling
- General
- Generic Rant
- Global Innovation
- Googlephobia
- Googlephobia
- Human Capital
- Innovation
- Intermediary Deputization & Section 230
- Internet
- Internet Governance
- Internet TV
- Interoperability
- IP
- Local Franchising
- Mass Media
- Media Regulation
- Monetary Policy
- Municipal Ownership
- Net Neutrality
- Neutrality
- Non-PFF Podcasts
- Ongoing Series
- Online Safety & Parental Controls
- Open Source
- PFF
- PFF Podcasts
- Philosophy / Cyber-Libertarianism
- Privacy
- Privacy Solutions
- Regulation
- Search
- Security
- Software
- Space
- Spectrum
- Sports
- State Policy
- Supreme Court
- Taxes
- The FCC
- The FTC
- The News Frontier
- Think Tanks
- Trade
- Trademark
- Universal Service
- Video Games & Virtual Worlds
- VoIP
- What We're Reading
- Wireless
- Wireline
Archives by Author
PFF Blogosphere Archives
We welcome comments by email - look for a link to the author's email address in the byline of each post. Please let us know if we may publish your remarks.
 










The Progress & Freedom Foundation