In a string of recent opinions, the Supreme Court has made it harder for consumers to avoid arbitration clauses, even when businesses strategically insert provisions in them that effectively prevent consumers from being able to bring any claim in any forum. In American Express Co. v. Italian...

For nearly forty years, since the Supreme Court decision in Illinois Brick, federal antitrust law has prevented indirect purchasers from complaining of overcharges caused by antitrust violations. The Court reasoned that direct purchasers are the best and most motivated antitrust plaintiffs. But...

Antitrust law is the primary legal obstacle to price fixing, which is condemned by Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Firms that engage in price fixing may try to reduce their probability of antitrust liability in a number of ways. First, members of a price-fixing conspiracy go to great lengths to...

Patentees sometimes use fraudulently procured patents to secure illegal monopolies, excluding efficient competitors and raising prices to consumers. While antitrust doctrine condemns the acquisition of monopoly power through fraudulently procured patents, antitrust liability hinges on whether...

Although price-fixing conspiracies are inherently unstable, many cartels manage to endure, often for long periods. Many successful cartels have hierarchical structures made up of high-level executives (principals) and lower-level managers (agents). For these cartels, agency cost theory could...

Definitions of “public interest” abound. One could make the case for antitrust law as public interest law using political or economic arguments. For some, one’s definition of the public interest reflects one’s political viewpoint. To avoid the risk of using a loaded description of public...

In Understanding Behavioral Antitrust, Professor Tor builds on his previous scholarship that explores how insights from behavioral economics can be used to improve antitrust jurisprudence. The Chicago School of law and economics revolutionized antitrust law. By applying insights from...

We have two conceptions of the relationship between antitrust and patent: in tension or complementary. In reality, both conceptions have an element of truth; the relationship is multidimensional. The relationship between antitrust law and patent law involves a series of trade-offs: How much...

The Standard Oil case continues to inform many aspects of current antitrust policy. Part of Standard Oil's significance, however, has been lost over time. The Supreme Court condemned a range of conduct by the Standard Oil Company as anticompetitive, including predatory pricing. Predatory pricing...