Merger enforcement today relies on settlements more than litigation to resolve anti-competitive concerns. The impact of settlement policy on welfare and the proper goals of settlement policy are highly controversial. Some argue that gun-shy agencies settle for too little while others argue that...

On March 20, 2011, wireless provider AT&T announced its intention to merge with T-Mobile USA, a competing wireless provider. This article reviews the economic analysis of this proposed acquisition that we carried out for Sprint and explains why the merger would have been anticompetitive. We...

In this short and mainly expository article, we explain the “hypothetical monopolist test” that has become the standard methodology for identifying relevant antitrust markets in merger cases, and discuss two approaches to implementing the test. We then focus on the implementation of the test...

The FTC and DOJ requested comments on their draft Vertical Merger Guidelines in January 2020. This article is a complete alternative set of suggested Vertical Merger Guidelines that reflects and supplements the approach explained in the comments submitted by the author along with Jonathan....

This article analyzes three recent vertical mergers: a private antitrust case attacking the consummated merger of Jeld-Wen and Craftmaster Manufacturing Inc. (“CMI”) that was cleared by the DOJ in 2012 but subsequently litigated and won by the plaintiff, Steves & Sons in 2018; and two recent...

This article analyzes my short proposal for reviewing and modifying merger consent decrees to permit additional relief if the provisions of the initial consent merger are found to fail to preserve or restore competition in a reasonable period of time after the merger was consummated. My proposal...