Author: Aaron Gott There are a lot of lessons you can learn from Wonka. It’s a story about how ingenuity, determination, selflessness, and teamwork can overcome the oppressive adversity of a system that serves entrenched interests. But it’s also a story about a chocolate cartel. And that offers its own lessons, too. Just ask my four kids, who now understand what I do all day (though I may have overplayed the chocolate-related aspect). In fact, the whole plot of Wonka revolves around the machinations of this market-dominating chocolate cartel. It’s almost as if the folks over at Warner Bros. P ..read more

Author: Jarod Bona Law school exams are all about issue spotting. Sure, after you spot the issue, you must describe the elements and apply them correctly. But the important skill is, in fact, issue spotting. In the real world, you can look up a claim’s elements; in fact, you should do that anyway because the law can change (see, e.g., Leegin and resale price maintenance). And outside of a law-school hypothetical, it usually isn’t that difficult to apply the law to the facts. Of course, what makes antitrust law interesting is that it evolves over time and its application to different circumsta ..read more

Authors: Luke Hasskamp and Molly Donovan We often write about sports and antitrust and have previously written about professional golf, and, specifically, the legal implications of a competitor golf league trying to break onto the scene: The PGA Tour faces off with the Premier Golf League: An Antitrust Problem? Is Antitrust Litigation the Next Stop in the PGA Tour’s Battle with the Upstart LIV Golf League? The new league, LIV Golf, seeks to compete with the PGA Tour, as well as the European tour (known as the DP World Tour). Indeed, LIV Golf held its first event this past weekend in London ..read more

Author: Steven J. Cernak Two months ago, I encouraged all readers of this blog to read Complexity-Minded Antitrust by Nicolas Petit and Thibault Schrepel. As I explained in that article, I think their suggestion that antitrust lawyers and policymakers should consider applying learnings from complexity theory to antitrust questions was a good one. I hope you heeded my suggestion. Over 1300 others have at least downloaded the article. After reading the article, I wanted to get smarter about complexity as well. I had dipped my toe in the complexity water during my graduate economics studies and ..read more

Author: Steven J. Cernak Apologies for the clickbait headline but all antitrust practitioners and policymakers should read Complexity-Minded Antitrust by Nicolas Petit and Thibault Schrepel. In their short article, the authors suggest a potentially radical new way to think about the competition that antitrust law is designed to protect. Written to raise more questions than answers, the article should get us all thinking about some of antitrust’s bedrock principles. The authors are no strangers to provocative takes on cutting edge antitrust topics. Petit explored similar topics in the context ..read more

  Author: Jarod Bona I believe that Bitcoin is the enemy of tyranny and the greatest invention of the 21st century. Its detractors tend to either not understand Bitcoin or believe that the people are best when they are controlled and manipulated. Maybe that was a little hyperbolic? I don’t care. The truth is that I am still learning. I am still crawling through the rabbit hole (a cliché, but one often used in this area) and I recommend that you do the same. The more I learn, the more excited I get about Bitcoin and what it means for our future. As someone who has made the study of and in ..read more

Author: Jarod Bona As an antitrust attorney, over time you see the same major cases cited again and again. It is only natural that you develop favorites. Here at The Antitrust Attorney Blog, we, from time-to-time, highlight some of the “Classic Antitrust Cases” that we love, that we hate, or that we merely find interesting. The Supreme Court decided National Society of Professional Engineers in the late 1970s—when I was two-years old—and before the Reagan Revolution. But the views that the author, Justice John Paul Stevens, expressed on behalf of the Supreme Court perhaps ushered in the faith ..read more

Author: Steven J. Cernak How do you tie together evolution, the wave, and market prices?  As Neil Chilson explains in his brilliant little book, Getting Out of Control, all are examples of emergent order.  While Chilson is a former FTC leader, this book is not just for antitrust and consumer protection lawyers and economists but for anyone trying to understand what they can, and cannot and should not, control. The book is about more than policy and certainly more than antitrust policy.  It explores many ways in which emergent order can play a role in your life, both personal an ..read more

Author: Jarod Bona Do you or your competitor have a monopoly in a particular market? If so, your conduct or their conduct might enter Sherman Act, Section 2 territory, which we call monopolization. If you are in Europe or other jurisdictions outside of the United States, instead of monopoly, people will refer to the company with extreme market power as “dominant.” Of course, it isn’t illegal itself to be a monopolist or dominant (and monopoly is profitable). But if you utilize your monopoly power or obtain or enhance your market power improperly, you might run afoul of US, EU, or other antitr ..read more

Author: Jon Cieslak Many guitarists and rock music fans have recently gotten to know Rick Beato. Beato is a musician, music producer, and, most recently, a YouTube personality. He regularly produces YouTube videos about a variety of music topics, headlined by his most well-known series, What Makes This Song Great?, which breaks down and discusses popular songs. He also occasionally discusses legal issues, particularly copyright law and fair use, as he has had videos removed from his YouTube channel. In one video, Beato touches on antitrust law in his discussion of what he refers to as the Y2K ..read more