The purpose of this short article is to aid practitioners in analyzing the competitive effects of vertical and complementary product mergers. It is also intended to assist the agencies if and when they undertake revision of the 1984 U.S. Vertical Merger Guidelines. Those Guidelines are out of...

This article reviews the formulation and evolution of the Philadelphia National Bank anticompetitive presumption through the lens of decision theory and Bayes Law. It explains how the economic theory, empirical evidence and experience are used to determine a presumption and how that presumption...

The deregulation of aviation enhances the importance of antitrust agencies in civil aviation markets in the countries of South America. This paper aims to analyze the main aspects of Court of the Defense of Competition in Chile and of the Administrative Council Economic Defense (CADE) in Brazil...

The Australian Competition Tribunal's decision in Qantas provides an in-depth analysis on private and public benefits. The Canadian Competition Tribunal's decision in Superior Propane also provides useful learning on the topic. This article examines the distinction between public benefits and...

Many experts speculate that U.S. antitrust policy towards horizontal mergers has been too lenient. We estimate the price effects of Whirlpool's acquisition of Maytag to provide new evidence on this debate. We compare price changes in appliance markets most affected by the merger to markets where...

This paper looks at whether the standard unilateral effects model can be applied to non-price competition parameters such as innovation. This question arises because competition authorities are intervening in horizontal mergers that are found to give rise to a “significant impediment to...

Complexity science is widely used across the policy spectrum but not in antitrust. This is unfortunate. Complexity science enables a rich understanding of competition beyond the simplistic descriptions of markets and firms proposed by neoclassical models and their contemporary neo-Brandeisian...

The treatment of innovation within the merger context by U.S. Antitrust Agencies continues to evolve, with regard to both general statements of enforcement policy and specific enforcement decisions. The respective merger guidelines issued by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade...

We have revised our earlier listing of vertical merger enforcement actions by the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission since 1994. This revised listing includes 66 vertical matters beginning in 1994 through April 2020. It includes challenges and certain proposed transactions that...

This paper seeks to challenge the present rhetoric used by competition policy makers and enforcers when advancing economic efficiency as a goal of competition policy. The fixation on the promotion of economic efficiency and intense or fierce competition comes at the expense of other sensible...