“The court slapped down a South Florida couple’s putative class action lawsuit, which sought $5 million in damages and claimed McDonald’s was wrong to force diners to pay for cheese on Quarter Pounder and Double Quarter Pounder burgers, whether or not they wanted it.” [Raychel Lean, Daily Business Review/Law.com, earlier here and here]
Posts Tagged ‘antitrust’
Banking and finance roundup
Cato-centric edition:
- “Fractional reserve banking is at the root of business cycles” is no more persuasive than “fractional-reserve banking is inherently fraudulent” [George Selgin, Cato Alt-M] And Cato’s 36th annual monetary conference will be held in DC Nov. 15 with the theme: “Monetary Policy: Ten Years After the Crisis”;
- Some fear anticompetitive effects from patterns of common ownership of corporate equities among index funds and institutional investors. Not so fast [Thomas A. Lambert and Michael E. Sykuta, Regulation magazine]
- “10 Years Later, Assessing the Dangerous Legacy of TARP” [John Allison, Real Clear Markets]
- “Why Bitcoin Is Not an Environmental Catastrophe” [Diego Zuluaga, Cato]
- Vern McKinley reviews book by advocate of postal banking revival [Regulation; earlier here and here]
- “America has strong protection of private property rights, is bound by the rule of law, and pays its debts.” Well, for the most part [Gerald O’Driscoll, Jr., Cato Journal reviewing book on FDR gold episode]
October 17 roundup
- Antitrust legislation once targeted the unstoppable rise of chain stores A&P and Sears, both now bankrupt [my new Cato post, quoting Joe Nocera, Bloomberg (“The next time you hear somebody say that the dominance of Walmart or Amazon or Facebook can never end, think about Sears. It can — and it probably will.”)]
- When you wish upon a suit: visitor grabs Disney cast member and screams at her after she asks him to move out of parade route, later pleads no contest to disorderly conduct, now wants $15,000 [Gabrielle Russon, Orlando Sentinel]
- Tomorrow (Thurs.) at noon Eastern, watch a Cato panel on “Coercive Plea Bargaining” with Scott Hechinger of Brooklyn Defender Services, Bonnie Hoffman of the NACDL, and Somil Trivedi of the ACLU, moderated by Cato’s Clark Neily. Could you resist taking a plea bargain if faced with a false accusation? [Marc John Randazza, ABA Journal]
- “I am a Democrat. But this may be the dumbest thing I have seen…. the Speech or Debate Clause makes about as clear as anything in the Constitution that a court cannot enjoin legislative officials from taking a fundamental legislative action such as a vote.” [Howard Wasserman on suit by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) asking court to, among other things, order delay of Senate vote on Kavanaugh nomination]
- An ideological screen for CLE? Following demands from tribal attorneys, Minnesota bar authorities order shelving of continuing legal education class on Indian Child Welfare Act developments taught by attorney Mark Fiddler, who often handles ICWA cases on side adverse to tribes [Timothy Sandefur]
- Left-leaning Florida Supreme Court nixes plan to let incumbent Gov. Rick Scott fill vacancies, entrenching its leftward lean for a while at least depending on outcome of governor’s race [Spectrum News 9]
August 22 roundup
- Don’t: “Former lawyer is charged with stealing client identities to apply for litigation advances” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal; Marietta, Georgia]
- “Website Access and Other ADA Title III Lawsuits Hit Record Numbers” [Minh Vu et al., Seyfarth Shaw; related, Julia Limitone, Fox; earlier] More compliance deadlines for movie theatres on captioning and audio description [Kevin Fritz, Seyfarth Shaw]
- Because this damaging exercise in maritime protectionism isn’t going away, Cato has launched a Project on Jones Act Reform [earlier]
- Worth keeping an eye on: proposals for “International Convention on Business and Human Rights” [Carlos Lopez, Opinio Juris, first, second posts]
- Alan Reynolds on the return of antitrust [Regulation mag via David Henderson, Econlib] A guide to Regulation mag articles on antitrust over the years [Peter Van Doren] Federalist Society conference on The Antitrust Paradox [opening remarks with Hon. Makan Delrahim and Dean Reuter first, second; panel on book’s generational impact first, second; panel on current state of play first, second]
- “Pro tip from the Tenth Circuit: Attorneys should tell the court if their clients die.” [Havens v. Colorado Department of Corrections via John Kenneth Ross/Short Circuit]
July 5 roundup
- State by state survey of 140 bills around the country on hot topics related to religious accommodation, including adoption, service refusals, campus speech, health care, etc. [Kelsey Dallas, Deseret News] And don’t forget to mark your calendar for two weeks from today when Cato will host our half-day conference on adoption, foster care, and pluralism with an array of fine speakers;
- What ails long-haul trucking in a time of prosperity? Federal break regulations, electronic monitoring, artificial constraints on parking among factors [Virginia Postrel, Bloomberg]
- Antitrust debates cut across political spectrum [Daniel A. Crane, Cato Regulation magazine] “Solicitor General Inveighs Against Antitrust-Law Revolution in SCOTUS ‘Apple v. Pepper’ Amicus Brief” [Corbin Barthold, WLF]
- These seem like well-planned-out laws: Google suspends running campaign ads in Washington and Maryland following states’ enactment of new disclosure laws [Michael Dresser, Baltimore Sun, Jim Brunner and Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times, Scott Shackford]
- “Missouri appeals court tosses $55 million Johnson & Johnson talc-powder verdict” [Reuters, earlier (courts reverse two other big verdicts) and generally]
- “What Secretary Carson Should Know about Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)” [Vanessa Brown Calder, earlier]
Supreme Court roundup
- Mark your calendar now for Cato’s Constitution Day September 17 with a star-packed program (plus me) [register; Facebook event]
- “Cato Did Remarkably Well at the Supreme Court” with an 11-3 record this term [Ilya Shapiro]
- Cakeshop crumbs: “The Scope of the Masterpiece Cakeshop Decision Will Be Determined by the Concurrences” [Erica Goldberg] “Does Masterpiece Cakeshop’s Easy Inference of Hostile Intent Overturn Employment Division v Smith?” [Rick Hills] Plus: thoughts from Prof. Michael McConnell [Volokh] and from Douglas Laycock and Thomas Berg as part of SCOTUSBlog’s symposium on the decision;
- South Dakota v. Wayfair: Court approves state sales tax collection from out-of-state vendors [Caron/TaxProf first and second link roundup, Trevor Burrus and Matthew Larosiere, earlier]
- Ohio v. Amex: divided Court lays out antitrust principles for transaction platforms [Beth Farmer, SCOTUSBlog; Eric Fruits, Truth on the Market; Diego Zuluaga (“Don’t Blame American Express for the Plight of the Poor”)]
- Animal Science Products v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceuticals: Court considered question of deference allowable to foreign law and we didn’t have a culture war about it [Amy Howe, SCOTUSBlog; Cassandra Burke Robertson and Stephen Sachs, Prawfs]
AT&T Time Warner merger
My new piece at CNN begins by noting that antitrust law has moved on since the Truman era, even if the U.S. Department of Justice hasn’t quite:
In 1948 the US Supreme Court ordered Hollywood studios to sell their movie theaters, following the then-popular idea that the government should police marketplace competition by restraining businesses’ vertical integration — or as we might put it these days, by ordering content kept separate from distribution.
The surprise in 2018 is not so much that US District Judge Richard Leon rejected the government’s challenge to the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner merger. That much was expected by most antitrust watchers. The shock came from the stinging way he rejected the government’s evidence — using language such as “gossamer thin” and “poppycock.”
CNN, of course, is owned by merger participant Time Warner. The question is not whether vertical integration will happen in video delivery, but whether older companies will be allowed to catch up. For Washington to block a merger like this, I suggest, “would be as futile as attempting to separate Net from Flix or You from Tube.”
Chasing data portability on social media
Data portability mandates on tech companies like Facebook are sometimes conceived as a way to bring about more competitive market structures pleasing to antitrust enforcers by engineering a less “sticky” consumer experience. But is it really much of a solution to anything? [Alex Tabarrok citing Will Rinehart, American Action Forum; more, Tyler Cowen]
May 30 roundup
- “Leave your 13-year-old home alone? Police can take her into custody under Illinois law” [Jeffrey Schwab, Illinois Policy]
- So many stars to sue: Huang v. leading Hollywood names [Kevin Underhill, Lowering the Bar]
- Morgan Spurlock’s claim in 2004’s Super Size Me of eating only McDonald’s food for a month and coming out as a physical wreck with liver damage was one that later researchers failed to replicate; now confessional memoir sheds further doubt on baseline assertions essential to the famous documentary [Phelim McAleer, WSJ]
- If you’ve seen those “1500 missing immigrant kids” stories — and especially if you’ve helped spread them — you might want to check out some of these threads and links [Josie Duffy Rice, Dara Lind, Rich Lowry]
- “Antitrust Enforcement by State Attorney Generals,” Federalist Society podcast with Adam Biegel, Vic Domen, Jennifer Thomson, Jeffrey Oliver, and Ian Conner]
- “The lopsided House vote for treating assaults on cops as federal crimes is a bipartisan portrait in cowardice.” [Jacob Sullum, more, Scott Greenfield, earlier on hate crimes model for “Protect and Serve Act”]
March 28 roundup
- One-woman false-accusation machine induced Pittsburgh police to file eight criminal cases against couple; one was jailed for six days and the other for six months before she admitted making it up [Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
- Regulation is the bane of a great many California small businesses, and that goes for Humboldt County marijuana growers too [David Boaz, Cato]
- One Billy Goat might have cause to regret picking trademark fight with another [Timothy Geigner, TechDirt]
- “Antitrust Jurisprudence Is the Right’s Greatest Legal Success” [John McGinnis, Law and Liberty]
- State Attorney General Election Tracker is a new resource from law firm Cozen O’Connor tracking campaign and election news from state attorney general elections across the country;
- “Iowa judge admits hundreds of his rulings were ghost-written by attorneys” [Clark Kauffman, Des Moines Register]