Download or read book Antitrust Analysis of Vertical Mergers written by Koren Wong-Ervin and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The generally well-accepted belief motivating modern antitrust analysis of vertical mergers -- i.e., acquisitions that combine companies in different levels of the same supply chain -- is that they are generally procompetitive or neutral. That belief is based upon a significant body of empirical evidence. Indeed, as former U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Bureau of Economics head Francine Lafontaine and Margaret Slade concluded, “[c]onsistent with the large set of efficiency motives for vertical mergers . . . the [empirical] evidence on the consequences of vertical mergers suggests that consumers mostly benefit from mergers that firms undertake voluntarily.” That view of the empirical evidence is consistent with other meta-studies of the empirical evidence by leading industrial organization economists from academia and the U.S. antitrust agencies. Consistent with this evidence, the U.S. antitrust agencies typically have rarely challenged vertical mergers. When they have challenged vertical mergers, they have tended to resolve concerns with narrowly tailored behavioral remedies, such as firewalls to prevent the sharing of rivals' competitively sensitive information, non-discrimination clauses to eliminate incentives to disfavor rivals, and requirements to supply and/or license competitors. This Article is organized as follows: Section I sets forth the empirical evidence supporting the widespread understanding that vertical integration is generally procompetitive or neutral, and responds to the major critiques of these studies. Section I also discusses typical justifications for vertical integration, namely avoiding the costly and risky processes of forming, administering, and enforcing contracts with independent suppliers and customers. Section II lays out the economic approach to antitrust analysis of vertical mergers, briefly addressing calls for the U.S. antitrust agencies to update their 1984 Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines. Section III discusses remedies. The final section offers closing thoughts focusing on the relative expertise of agencies and courts as compared to merging parties in evaluating the costs and benefits of vertical integration.
Download or read book Electric Utility Mergers written by Mark W. Frankena and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1994-07-30 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Competition in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity is of increasing interest to policy makers as well as to buyers and sellers of power. The use of competition as a social policy tool to benefit consumers carries the necessity of preserving competition when it is threatened by mergers or other structural changes. The work explains central principles of antitrust economics and applies them to mergers in the electric power industry. This work focuses on mergers, but the economic principles explained here will be useful in analyzing many important issues flowing from growth of competition in electric power. For example, proper definition of markets and analysis of market power will be useful in decisions on whether to continue regulation.
Download or read book Mergers and Acquisitions written by American Bar Association. Section of Antitrust Law and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2004 with total page 898 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive review of U.S. substantive merger law, this book gives you indispensable guidance you can put into practice today.
Download or read book Law and Economics of Vertical Integration and Control written by Roger D. Blair and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2014-05-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Law and Economics of Vertical Integration and Control focuses on the processes, methodologies, and approaches involved in the law and economics of vertical integration and control. The publication first elaborates on transaction costs, fixed proportions and contractual alternatives, and variable proportions and contractual alternatives. Discussions focus on sales revenue royalties, ownership integration, output royalties, important product-specific services, successive monopoly, advantages and limitations of internal transfers, and transaction cost determinants. The text then examines vertical integration under uncertainty and vertical integration without contractual alternatives. The book ponders on legal treatment of ownership integration and per se illegal contractual controls. Topics include tying arrangements, public policy assessment, resale price maintenance, vertical integration and the Sherman Act, market foreclosure doctrine, and the 1982 Merger Guidelines. The text also takes a look at contractual controls that are not illegal per se, alternative legal rules, and antitrust policy. The publication is a dependable reference for researchers interested in the law and economics of vertical integration and control.
Download or read book Mergers and Acquisitions written by Robert S. Schlossberg and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2008 with total page 1228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Antitrust Paradox written by Robert Bork and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most important book on antitrust ever written. It shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses.
Download or read book Revising the U S Vertical Merger Guidelines written by Steven C. Salop and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mergers and acquisitions are a major component of antitrust law and practice. The U.S. antitrust agencies spend a majority of their time on merger enforcement. The focus of most merger review at the agencies involves horizontal mergers, that is, mergers among firms that compete at the same level of production or distribution.Vertical mergers combine firms at different levels of production or distribution. In the simplest case, a vertical merger joins together a firm that produces an input (and competes in an input market) with a firm that uses that input to produce output (and competes in an output market).Over the years, the agencies have issued Merger Guidelines that outline the type of analysis carried out by the agencies and the agencies' enforcement intentions in light of state of the law. These Guidelines are used by agency staff in evaluating mergers, as well as by outside counsel and the courts.Guidelines for vertical mergers were issued in 1968 and revised in 1984. However, the Vertical Merger Guidelines have not been revised since 1984. Those Guidelines are now woefully out of date. They do not reflect current economic thinking about vertical mergers. Nor do they reflect current agency practice. Nor do they reflect the analytic approach taken in the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines. As a result, practitioners and firms lack the benefits of up-to-date guidance from the U.S. enforcement agencies.
Download or read book Handbook of Antitrust Economics written by Paolo Buccirossi and published by . This book was released on 2008-03-21 with total page 716 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts examine the application of economic theory to antitrust issues in both the United States and Europe, discussing mergers, agreements, abuses of dominance, and the impact of market features. Over the past twenty years, economic theory has begun to play a central role in antitrust matters. In earlier days, the application of antitrust rules was viewed almost entirely in formal terms; now it is widely accepted that the proper interpretation of these rules requires an understanding of how markets work and how firms can alter their efficient functioning. The Handbook of Antitrust Economics offers scholars, students, administrators, courts, companies, and lawyers the economist's view of the subject, describing the application of newly developed theoretical models and improved empirical methods to antitrust and competition law in both the United States and the European Union. (The book uses the U.S. term “antitrust law” and the European “competition law” interchangeably, emphasizing the commonalities between the two jurisdictions.) After a general discussion of the use of empirical methods in antitrust cases, the Handbook covers mergers, agreements, abuses of dominance (or unilateral conducts), and market features that affect the way firms compete. Chapters examine such topics as analyzing the competitive effects of both horizontal and vertical mergers, detecting and preventing cartels, theoretical and empirical analysis of vertical restraints, state aids, the relationship of competition law to the defense of intellectual property, and the application of antitrust law to “bidding markets,” network industries, and two-sided markets. Contributors Mark Armstrong, Jonathan B. Baker, Timothy F. Bresnahan, Paulo Buccirossi, Nicholas Economides, Hans W. Friederiszick, Luke M. Froeb, Richard J. Gilbert, Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., Paul Klemperer, Kai-Uwe Kuhn, Francine Lafontaine, Damien J. Neven, Patrick Rey, Michael H. Riordan, Jean-Charles Rochet, Lars-Hendrick Röller, Margaret Slade, Giancarlo Spagnolo, Jean Tirole, Thibaud Vergé, Vincent Verouden, John Vickers, Gregory J. Werden
Download or read book Horizontal Mergers written by William Blumenthal and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 1986 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Number 14 in the Antitrust law Section monograph series, this work summarizes the state of the law in every area affecting semihorizontal, conglomerate and vertical mergers, and was prepared as a companion to Monograph 12.
Download or read book Industrial Concentration and the Chicago School of Antitrust Analysis written by Jan B. Rittaler and published by Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften. This book was released on 1989 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After roughly 15 years of merger control application in the Federal Republic of Germany a reassessment of the significance of this instrument of antitrust policy seems necessary. This is particularly so in view of the reorientation of merger control policy in the United States which has been - in its original version - the model for the German merger control system. Concerning merger control, the reorientation is characterized by the notion that the structure-conduct-performance paradigm which has dominated U.S. antitrust for a quarter of a century is imprecise or even incorrect and «that bigness in business does not necessarily mean badness.» This makes the fundamental question arise of whether the German merger control system is still up to date in terms of the underlying market theory and of whether the German Act Against Restraints of Competition needs a reorientation towards aspects of market conduct and performance instead of market structure by means of a Fifth Amendment.
Download or read book Analyzing Vertical Mergers to Avoid False Negatives written by Steven C. Salop and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This article analyzes three recent vertical mergers: a private antitrust case attacking the consummated merger of Jeld-Wen and Craftmaster Manufacturing Inc. (“CMI”) that was cleared by the DOJ in 2012 but subsequently litigated and won by the plaintiff, Steves & Sons in 2018; and two recent vertical merger matters investigated and cleared (with limited remedies) by 3-2 votes by the Federal Trade Commission in early 2019 -- Staples/Essendant and Fresenius/NxStage. There are some factual parallels among these three matters that make it interesting to analyze them together. First, the DOJ's decision to clear Jeld-Wen/CMI merger appears to be a clear false negative, and the two dissenting Commissioner suggest that the recent FTC decisions similarly are false negatives. Second, the DOJ and possibly the FTC in Staples/Essendant may have overlooked the “Frankenstein Monster” scenario of input foreclosure. Third, both the DOJ and the FTC in Fresenius/NxStage also apparently relied on the absence of complaints in making their clearance decisions. The analysis of these mergers also suggests several policy implications involving the need to analyze the full range of anticompetitive concerns, the potential for merger retrospectives by independent (as opposed to staff) researchers, the height of the evidentiary burden on the agencies to show competitive harm in light of their limited budgets, and the need for greater transparency in Commission statements, as well as the potential errors in relying on a lack of complaints.
Download or read book The Welfare Effects of Vertical Mergers and Their Remedies written by John W. Mayo and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper extends Williamson's (1968) classic framework of the welfare effect of mergers to the case of vertical mergers, and in particular to those in which the imposition of merger conditions (remedies) may allow an otherwise anticompetitive merger to proceed. While similarities to the case of horizontal mergers without a remedies option are present, differences also arise. Most notably, for prototypical vertical mergers remedies may yield post-merger economic welfare which is higher than pre-merger levels. This suggests that remedies directed toward vertical mergers hold the promise of a more beneficial approach than in the case of horizontal mergers. This finding leads to an examination of merger remedies policy and practice. We find that antitrust enforcers historically have implicitly recognized both the economic welfare framework and the more robust role for remedies in vertical merger cases, particularly through the application of remedies aimed at preventing identified anticompetitive conduct while facilitating merger-related efficiencies. The 2020 Vertical Merger Guidelines illuminate the basis for the U.S. antitrust agencies' substantive analysis of vertical mergers, but do not address remedies. This paper discusses principles that may be useful in formulating much-needed guidance that would unify, clarify and reinforce the agencies' policies for remedies in vertical merger cases.
Download or read book Antitrust Law written by Phillip Areeda and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book U S Department of Justice Statement Accompanying Release of Revised Merger Guidelines June 14 1984 written by United States. Department of Justice and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book U S Department of Justice Merger Guidelines June 14 1984 written by United States. Department of Justice and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Critical Evaluation of the Chicago School of Antitrust Analysis written by I. Schmidt and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The publication of this clinically analytical and trenchantly insightful volume is felicitously timed. By fortuitous coincidence, it comes at a time when the Chicago School enjoys a high-water mark of acceptance in U.S. legal circles, and at a time when the U.S. merger movement of the 1980s is cresting. It provides a welcome warning against the dangers of translating abstract theories, based on highly restrictive (and unrealistic) assumptions, into facile public policy recommendations. As such the Schmidt/Rittaler study serves as a needed antidote to the currently fashionable predilection to confuse ideology with science. In the Chicago lexicon, the only appropriate policy toward business is a policy of untrammeled laissez-faire. Because there are no market imperfec tions (other than government-created or trade-union-generated monopolies), the market can be trusted to regulate economic activity, inexorably meting out appropriate rewards and punishments. In this ideal world, corporate size and power can be safely ignored. After all, corporations become big only only because they are efficient, only because they are productive, only because they have served consumers better than their rivals, and only because no newcomers are good enough to challenge their dominance. Once an industrial giant becomes lethargic and no longer bestows its productive beneficence on society, it will inevitably wither and eventually die. This is the "natural law" that governs economic life. It demands obedience to its rules. It tolerates no interference by the state.
Download or read book Mergers in the New Antitrust Era written by Thomas W. Brunner and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
