A primary cause of the recent credit market turmoil was overdependence on credit ratings and credit rating agencies. Without such overdependence, the complex financial instruments, particularly Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs), which were at the...

Competition law is fun. As a noted expert consultant told one of us: ‘Don't tell my spouse, but I'd work on these cases for the sheer joy of it.' The facts, the issues, the window into economies and legal systems -- it does not get much better than this. Not surprisingly, then, competition law...

Since five years now, the financial crisis dominates the EU agenda. What started as the tail of the US subprime crisis turned into a “systemic” issue with the freezing of the wholesale funding market subsequent to Lehman Brothers' filing for Chapter 11 protection on September 15, 2008 (at...

In my earlier article, I proposed the "Protected Profits Benchmark" (PPB) price standard for determining whether or not a vertically integrated monopolist is engaged in a refusal to deal or price squeeze in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The PPB would be used where market benchmarks...

The FTC recently found McWane, Inc. liable for unlawful monopoly maintenance by a 3-1 majority. The dispute among the FTC Commissioners raises important and interesting issues regarding the law and economics of exclusive dealing and the proper evaluation of the competitive effects of...