Re: Administration Plans Tougher Antitrust Action - NYTimes.com

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gerry Faulhaber" <gerry-faulhaber () mchsi com>
Date: May 11, 2009 11:41:00 AM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Administration Plans Tougher Antitrust Action -  
NYTimes.com

Dave [for IP]

I am cautiously optimistic about this new antitrust policy.   
Optimistic, because I am in favor of vigorous antitrust enforcement;  
my general preference is for less detailed regulation and more  
antitrust as a means of protecting the competitiveness of markets.  I  
also am enthusiastic about her appointments: Carl Shapiro (great  
economist) and Phil Weiser (great legal scholar).  I even like Gene  
Kimmelman, a dedicated consumer advocate who is willing to engage in  
serious discussion of economic/consumer issues (we occasionally rode  
the Red Line together in DC when I was Chief Economist at the FCC in  
2000-2001).

Cautious because the focus of antitrust needs to be on protecting  
customers, not protecting other firms.  It is the nature of vigorous  
competition that some firms win and some lose; witness GM and Chrysler  
vs. Toyota and Honda. Toyota wins in the auto market because it builds  
better cars, and Chrysler has no antitrust beef whatsoever: customers  
are better off as a result of this competition.  However, some firms  
would like protection via antitrust when their competitors win, and  
they seek to sway DoJ/FTC to fight their battles for them.  This needs  
to be resisted; if companies can provide evidence that the actions of  
their dominant competitors actually harm customers, then DoJ/FTC can  
act on that information.  But if they simply want protection from  
competition, no way.

Let's see if the Varney AT Division protects customers or protects  
competitors.  Kudos for the former, raspberries for the latter.

Professor Gerald Faulhaber
Wharton School, Penn Law
University of Pennsylvania

----- Original Message ----- From: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>
To: "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 9:47 AM
Subject: [IP] Administration Plans Tougher Antitrust Action -  
NYTimes.com


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/business/11antitrust.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Administration Plans to Strengthen Antitrust Rules

By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: May 11, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s top antitrust official this week plans
to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that
use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them
from gaining market share.


Susan Etheridge for The New York Times
Christine Varney, left, of the Justice Department’s antitrust division.
The new enforcement policy would reverse the Bush administration’s
approach, which strongly favored defendants against antitrust claims.
It would restore a policy that led to the landmark antitrust lawsuits
against Microsoft and Intel in the 1990s.



snip

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