antitrust
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris' new call to regulate food prices and block mergers has drawn enormous flak from economists, given the poor track record of price controls. Democrats think they can make political headway with a "greedflation" narrative, blaming rising prices on business profit-seeking. There are both disreputable and respectable versions of this narrative—dumb and dumber, if you will—but they both run into the same problem: the evidence is against them. The dumber version, the one no economists endorse, says corporations got especially greedy, which made prices ...
Reason
Amid all the competing headlines of the 2024 election, there may be no more bread-and-butter issue—literally—than how much Americans are paying to put food on their tables. The GOP is gearing up to attack the Biden-Harris administration for escalating grocery store bills, while presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has now responded with her own plan to fight higher food prices. One of the hottest items in this political food fight is unquestionably the ongoing litigation from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) attempting to block the Kroger-Albertsons grocery store merger. A host of De...
Reason
The recent chaos caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike was a warning that the world's technological infrastructure may be a tad more fragile then we'd been led to believe. Business was disrupted, people were inconvenienced, and billions of dollars in damages were suffered because of the screw-up. Delta Airlines, Microsoft, and CrowdStrike are only a few of the companies pointing fingers at each other and getting ready for courtroom battles. But it appears that, yet again, government regulation made a bad situation even worse. It Started With an E.U.-Imposed Set...
Reason
A decision is here in the massive, multi-government case against Google. In an August 5 ruling, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that Google violated federal antitrust law. The case stems from lawsuits filed by both the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and several U.S. states. In the suits—now consolidated—they argued that Google held a monopoly on internet searches and search advertising and had engaged in "exclusionary conduct" to maintain this monopoly, in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. Far from showing Google to be some sort of mustach...
Reason
How will the economy affect Democrats' chances? The party in charge tends to be, rightly or wrongly, tied to current economic conditions in the minds of voters. So recent economic funkiness—a bad jobs report, trepidation about whether the Federal Reserve will act to ratchet down interest rates, headlines about stock market plunges abroad—could end up very bad for Democratic frontrunner Kamala Harris, reports Politico. It's not just that, though. It's also that Harris is, to some degree, claiming the Biden administration's accomplishments and priorities (junk fees, student loan debt) as her own...
Reason
A US judge ruled on Monday that Google is a monopoly that has been using its search dominance to stifle competition in a major decision that could shake up big tech. The judge's decision came nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting regulators against Google in the country's biggest antitrust showdown in decades. “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," US district judge Amit Mehta wrote in a 277-page ruling. It represents a ma...
Euronews (English)
Microsoft wants the feds to view its relationship with OpenAI as more of a frenemies (friends and enemies) situation than a real partnership, judging by a report filed with the SEC in July. In the filing, a form 10-K periodic financial performance and conditions report, Microsoft declared OpenAI as its rival in several passages while also stating numerous times throughout the document that OpenAI was its “strategic partner.” Strategic competitorsInterestingly, Microsoft cites dozens of rivals and “intense competition across all markets” in its statements on competition. These include companies...
Cointelegraph
The ostensible purpose of antitrust policy is to promote healthy competition in the marketplace, but antitrust enforcement has largely protected inefficient firms from the threat of competition and deprived consumers of the lower prices they would otherwise enjoy. Thanks to legal scholars like Robert Bork, antitrust enforcement over the past four decades has primarily focused on the most logical place—maximizing benefits for consumers. But Democrats are taking a radical turn from Bork's philosophy by reviving a nearly 90-year-old price discrimination law known as the Robinson-Patman Act, makin...
Reason
Promoting your product is fine, but not if it means throwing shade on competitors, according to the EU. The European Commission today accepted Vifor’s commitments to remedy potential disparagement of a rival product. Those promises are now legally binding and the Commission could issue fines up to 10% of Vifor’s turnover if they’re broken. Brussels worried Vifor had restricted competition by spreading misleading information about the safety of Monofer, an iron deficiency treatment marketed by the company's main competitor, Pharmacosmos. The Commission suspected that actions by Vifor, in some c...
Euronews (English)
In America, we do not punish businesses for their success. We certainly do not punish businesses because their competitors are struggling to keep pace. Sadly, that is exactly what the Department of Justice (DOJ) is attempting to do in its recent lawsuit against Apple. In March, the DOJ, joined by 15 states and the District of Columbia, filed a lawsuit aimed at penalizing Apple for successfully competing in the market for smartphones. However, like much of the Biden administration's approach to antitrust enforcement, the DOJ's lawsuit is focused on punishing Apple for its success rather than ad...
Reason
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