The Antitrust Hotch Potch

David Spector's Presentation on Collective Dominance

With some delay, I attach David Spector's insightful presentation on collective dominance under the ECMR (which was presented at the last lunch talk of the GCLC). David's slides confirm that the standard of proof is set extremely high. However, David suggests that quantitative techniques can be useful to substantiate a prediction of coordinated effects post merger. And there, I get a bit lost, as I have found many contradictory statements of economists on the issue. Many have affirmed that coordination can only be evidenced quantitatively in a narrow set of circumstances. Your input would be most appreciated.

Download spector_gclc_april_12.pdf

New SSRN Paper - Ex Ante Auction Model for the Control of Market Power in Standard Setting Organizations

Damien, J. Padilla and A-L. Farrar have recently published a new paper on SSRN. See here for a link to the paper. I paste the abstract hereafter:

RAND commitments — i.e., promises to license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms — play a key role in standard setting processes. However, the usefulness of those commitments has recently been questioned. The problem allegedly lies in the absence of a generally agreed test to determine whether a particular license satisfies a RAND commitment. Swanson and Baumol have suggested that "the concept of a 'reasonable' royalty for purposes of RAND licensing must be defined and implemented by reference to ex ante competition." In their opinion, a royalty should be deemed "reasonable" when it approximates the outcome of an ex ante auction process where IP owners submit RAND commitments coupled with licensing terms and selection to the standard is based on both technological merit and licensing terms. In this paper we investigate whether the ex ante auction approach proposed by Swanson and Baumol is likely to deliver efficient outcomes, both from static and dynamic standpoints. We find that given the peculiar characteristics of some of the industries where standardization takes place, in particular the many different business models adopted by innovating companies in those industries, the ex ante auction approach proposed by Swanson and Baumol may not always deliver the right outcomes from a social welfare viewpoint.

Back on track

I  finished my Phd a few days ago. The final stages of writing a doctoral dissertation are so demanding that you cannot  find time and energy to do anything else (sleep, feed..... and blogging).

So all my apologies for the low activity on the blog lately and many thanks for your patience. I will try to progressively increase the posting pace in the coming days.

PS: the public defense of my Phd will take place on Monday 14th May in Liège. For those of you who are in Belgium, feel free to come if interested. The subject is tacit collusion on oligopolistic markets. The members of the jury are J.F. Bellis, P. Larouche, P. Nihoul, A. Perrot, M. Wathelet, D. Waelbroeck, and of course Damien.

Nicolas

Launching of Casebook

As some of you already know, my colleague E. Elhauge and I have recently published a casebook entitled Global Competition Law & Economics. What you may not know is that the book will be officially launched at the ABA Spring Antitrust meeting on April 19. See here for more information.

Apple gets SO(ed)

What first seemed to be an Article 82 EC excessive pricing case is - unsurprisingly - moving towards an Article 81 EC procedure. Sustaining high prices on a market often requires the adoption of market partitioning practices, in order to prevent arbitrage/parallel imports. In turn, these practices generally take the form of vertical agreements, which fall within the purview of Article 81 EC.

Check here for the press release.

SO is the acronym for Statement of Objections.