The Federal Trade Commission’s recent complaint targets the Intel Corporation for antitrust scrutiny under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The Commission alleges that, through the use of loyalty discounts offered to microprocessor purchasers,...

The potential complementarities between antitrust and consumer protection law — collectively, “consumer law”— are well known. The rise of the newly established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) portends a deep rift in the intellectual infrastructure of consumer law that...

As part of its overhaul of financial services regulation the Obama Administration has proposed stronger protection of consumers of financial products and services. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009 (CFPA Act), which the Administration submitted to the U.S. Congress on June 30,...

In this Essay, the authors argue that in cases involving digital platforms, the Federal Trade Commission — when alleging unfair acts or practices in violation of section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act — must adopt the insights from platform economics and apply them within the legal...

State Consumer Protection Acts (CPAs) were designed to supplement the Federal Trade Commission's mission of protecting consumers and are often referred to as “little-FTC Acts.” There is growing concern that enforcement under these acts is not only qualitatively different than FTC...

The creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (“CFPA”) is a very bad idea and should be rejected. The proposal is not salvageable and cannot be improved in substance or in form. The foundational premise of the CFPA is that a failure of consumer protection, and specifically...

Foreclosure is a prominent concept in the antitrust laws and across economics. In the world of exclusionary conduct—foreclosure is the concept. But, despite its prominence in antitrust law and economics—including taking center stage in the Department of Justice’s complaint against...

The rise of large firms in the digital economy, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, has rekindled the debate about monopolization law. There are proposals to make finding liability easier against alleged digital monopolists by relaxing substantive standards; to flip burdens of proof;...

President Trump’s Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship is the latest in a series of proposals aimed at independent agencies, chiefly the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), that seek to police how tech companies operate their social media...

In a series of five merger cases from 1962 through 1974, the Supreme Court turned the then-reigning Structure-Conduct-Performance paradigm into the law of the land. The Court has not passed upon the substantive aspect of merger analysis since then. Thus, the legacy of these cases, in particular,...