The Justice Department’s challenge to AT&T’s proposed $108 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc. is likely the biggest antitrust news story of the year. Much of the attention from the mainstream media has been focused on possible influence by President Trump on the Justice Department’s decision to seek divestitures of assets, such as CNN, to…

This is Part Three of a four-part series of posts by myself and colleague Kimberly Justice on “It Is Time for an Antitrust Whistleblower Statute.”  Parts 1 and 2 can be found here and here. ******************************************************** Note:   If the Grassley/Leahy Anti-Retaliation Act is passed, that protection would be part of the whistleblower statute. Ms. Justice and I are advocating that…

Objections to an Antitrust Whistleblower Statute The idea of an antitrust whistleblower is not new, but it has never gained much traction in the past.  There have been significant objections, or at least disinterest—particularly from the Department of Justice.  The mood seemed to be “Our cup runneth over with Amnesty applications so let’s not screw…

Kimberly Justice and I wrote an article published in Global Competition Review arguing that it is time for an “Antitrust Whistleblower Statute.”  [The article is behind a pay firewall (here).]  Kimberly and I will be expanding on this idea in Cartel Capers blog posts over the next two weeks.  Below is the first installment.  We…

In Part 1 of this article (here), I argued that the Sherman Act was unconstitutional as a criminal statute because it is void for vagueness. A statute that criminalizes all restraints of trade cannot be saved by the Supreme Court explaining what Congress really must have really meant. What passed constitutional muster when the Sherman…

If you ever wanted to sell a student on pursuing a career in antitrust because of the interesting possibilities, Brent Snyder’s career (which is far from over) would be a good case in point.  Mr. Snyder graduated with Honors from the University of Texas School of Law, where he was an Associate Editor of the…

If you get lost, sometimes you must go back and start again from the beginning. I’ve been a bit lost on whether the Sherman Act is unconstitutional as a criminal statute. It is well accepted that per se violations of the Sherman Act can be prosecuted criminally.  An individual can be sentenced to up to…

By Robert E. Connolly[1] and Masayuki Atsumi[2] [This is Part 2 of a multi-part article on ways a foreign fugitive may be able to get some issues heard by a US federal court without surrendering to the United States and personally appearing in court.  Part 1 can be found here:  http://cartelcapers.com/blog/defending-foreign-fugitive-fugitive-disentitlement-doctrine/] A foreign defendant who…

By Robert E. Connolly [1] and Masayuki Atsumi [2] The fugitive disentitlement doctrine is an equitable doctrine under which a court has the discretion to decline to consider a petition of a defendant if that defendant does not appear before the court. “The paradigmatic object of the doctrine is the convicted criminal who flees while…

Last July, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division filed two actions, challenging proposed mergers that would have reduced the country’s “big five” health insurers to three. Bench trials have been held in these matters. On Monday, Judge John Bates of the federal district court in Washington, D.C. preliminary enjoined  Aetna Inc.’s $37 billion attempt to…