The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held in an en banc ruling that district courts wield significant discretion when deciding whether to certify a class action containing potentially uninjured class members. The opinion rejected a “de minimis” rule, which, according to Defendants,...

Unlike traditional antitrust analysis, a behavioural approach to antitrust law and economics is grounded in empirical observations of human behaviour. These reveal that judgments and decisions by real decision-makers in the market deviate systematically from those predicted by the rational...

A bundled discount occurs when a seller conditions a discount or rebate on the buyer's purchaser or two or more different products. Firms that produce fewer than all the good in the bundle find it difficult to compete because they must amortize the discount across a smaller range of goods. For...

This paper extends the economic literature on settlement, and draws some practical insights on reverse settlements. The key contributions to the economic literature on settlements follow from the distinction drawn between standard settlements, in which the status quo is preserved, and injunctive...

In 2005, Federated Department Stores, which does business as Macy's and Bloomingdales, acquired May Company Department Stores for $17 billion. Federal antitrust regulators took no action against this merger and in fact released an unprecedented statement explaining the decision to permit the...

This essay offers a brief, non-technical exposition of the antitrust analysis of horizontal mergers in product differentiated markets where the resulting price increase is thought to be unilateral - that is, only the post-merger firm increases its prices while other firms in the market do not....

The Neal Report, which was commissioned by Lyndon Johnson and published in 1967, is rightfully criticized for representing the past rather than the future of antitrust. Its authors completely embraced a theory of competition and industrial organization that had dominated American economic...

Mergers involving dominant firms legitimately receive close scrutiny under the antitrust laws, even if they involve tiny firms. Further, they should be examined closely even in markets that generally exhibit low entry barriers. Many of the so-called quot;unilateral effectsquot; cases in current...

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...

When rivals settle a patent dispute, they prefer to preserve the full monopoly profit, even if the patent is very likely invalid. The literature advocates comparing settlement outcomes to the expected result of litigation, but has not identified a comprehensive means of doing this. We show that...