Ah, the Spring Meeting. God I love it. Admittedly, the ABA Antitrust Section Spring Meeting, perhaps the profession’s preeminent event, is in some respects getting to be just a bit of a circus. What were once a handful of calm, early evening cocktail receptions in the bowels of the Marriott have grown into a deafening…
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, the freshman Republican and Tea Party favorite, is only slightly more famous as the son of Representative Ron Paul than as the deliberate namesake of Ayn Rand. Last Thursday he introduced a genuine humdinger. Deploying that prowess for economic and legal analysis that may characterize many ophthalmologists, Senator Paul seems…
In a recent letter to the House Transportation and Infrastructure leadership, all four sitting Federal Trade Commissioners joined in “grave concern” over that Committee’s plan to kick the agency out of the iconic, art deco building that FDR built for it nearly 75 years ago. The House Committee and its chairman intend to turn the…
Federal legislative proposals that would have repealed the antitrust exemption enjoyed by freight railroads and would have permitted the U.S. Department of Justice to sue Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members for price fixing will not pass the Senate as part of the Surface Transportation Bill. Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) last month introduced two…
While Attorney General Eric Holder spent much of his time at today’s Senate Judiciary Committee Department of Justice Oversight hearing responding to question’s about the “Fast and Furious” law enforcement operation, he also was asked to provide his thoughts on some recent developments at the Antitrust Division. Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI), chairman of the Senate…
Are U.S. antitrust laws suited to deal with the challenges presented by rapidly evolving digital industries? That was the question posed at a September 16 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Courts and Competition Policy. The subcommittee heard testimony from six witnesses, including a top Federal Trade Commission official, a consultant to…
