The FTC’s authority to seek permanent injunctive relief and monetary relief under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act is being called into question. While more commonly used in consumer protection cases, Section 13(b) has been used by the FTC to seek injunctive relief and equitable relief in competition cases as well. Just this week, the…
Consent decree reform has been a hallmark of the Makan Delrahim Antitrust Division. For two years, the head of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division has undertaken efforts to terminate legacy consent decrees and to streamline consent decree enforcement procedures. The agency has retired hundreds of legacy antitrust judgments. Currently, the agency is seeking to…
Fordham University School of Law will hold its 42nd Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy on October 1-2, 2015, at Fordham Law School in New York City. There also will be a new pre-conference antitrust economics workshop on September 30. The conference, now led by James Keyte of Skadden Arps, will feature new…
The University of Iowa Law Review will host a Centennial Symposium, honoring the work of Professor Herbert Hovenkamp, on October 23-24, in Iowa City. Hovenkamp, the Ben and Dorothy Willie Chair at Iowa College of Law, has authored roughly 100 articles, approximately 50 essays and book reviews, and dozens of books. He is the senior…
To continue its growth, the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) is recruiting the next generation of antitrust practitioners. The AAI is seeking the antitrust community’s support of new programs aimed at connecting with this next generation. Antitrust practitioners can help by nominating a young lawyer for Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement by a Young Lawyer. The award will be…
As the U.S. Sentencing Commission considers reforms of the guidelines for antitrust crimes, it should take action to affirm the importance of antitrust compliance programs as an essential tool in the fight against cartels, and to provide a balance against the Antitrust Division’s past approach of refusing to consider compliance programs in any case for…
The Federal Trade Commission is meant to be, and is, an expert body on antitrust laws. So, when a case like McWane—that raises both collusion and exclusion issues—is in front of the FTC, it seems reasonable to expect to receive guidance that is more helpful than we might get from a jury or generalist judge…
On 5 December, the European Commission published a package of measures to reduce the administrative burden of EU merger control, which will apply as of 1 January 2014. The package extends the scope of the simplified procedure for non-problematic cases. This means that more transactions may be notified using the Short Form CO, which will…
Protecting data security is the most important consumer protection issue for the economy. Each year the Federal Trade Commission receives a flood of identity fraud complaints. Efforts to diminish the problem by noting the limits on consumer liability are just plain wrong. There are liability protections but the external costs can be overwhelming. Consumers must…
Charles Dickens’ famous novel A Tale of Two Cities begins with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Dickens’ brilliant prose could have been describing our twin antitrust enforcement agencies. This Friday the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to evaluate antitrust enforcement. After a period of inactivity, the Department of…
