Posts Tagged ‘antitrust’

February 21 roundup

  • Minimum 18 age for marriage, stadium subsidies, bill requiring landlords to distribute voter registration material, dollar-home programs, and more in my latest Maryland policy roundup [Free State Notes; earlier on NJ first-in-nation ban on under-18 marriage]
  • Now shuttered by California regulation: startup that allowed home cooks to sell meals directly to neighbors [Baylen Linnekin]
  • Guess who’s hosting a program of his own on Russia’s RT network? Tub-thumping plaintiff’s lawyer, sometime RFK Jr. pal and longtime Overlawyered favorite Michael Papantonio;
  • “Should the governments give LGBT-owned businesses a leg up in public contracts?” (Answer: no. Set-asides and preferences are unfair in themselves and deprive taxpayers and those served of the best price/value proposition.) [Bobby Allyn, NPR Marketplace]
  • “Network effects” bogeyman gets deployed to bolster many an antitrust nostrum [David S. Evans and Richard Schmalensee, Cato “Regulation”] “The Future of Antitrust” Federalist Society video with Ronald Cass, Daniel Crane, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, Jonathan Kanter, Barry Lynn, moderated by Judge Brett Kavanaugh;
  • Arguments fated to lose: “After 4th DWI, man argues legal limit discriminates against alcoholics” [Chuck Lindell, Austin American-Statesman]

November 1 roundup

  • Antitrust crackdown on Big Tech based on predictions of where markets may head in future? Just don’t [Alan Reynolds in part three of series; parts one and two]
  • Copyright holder sends mass demands to IP address holders, but for lower amounts and as “fines” rather than settlements. A move away from troll model, or refinement of it? [Timothy Geigner, TechDirt]
  • Among the many issues far afield from Bill of Rights that ACLU is up to lately: defending drive-by ADA filing operations against remedial legislation [ACLU, earlier on its drift from civil liberties mission]
  • Texas AG sues arguing unconstitutionality of Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA); case involves blocking of “adoption [that] has the support of the boy’s biological parents and grandmother, Paxton said.” [Texas Tribune] More: Timothy Sandefur, NR;
  • More local and personal than my usual fare, I ramble about my education and upbringing, why I live where I live, as well as some policy matters [Frederick News-Post “Frederick Uncut” local-newsmaker podcast with Colin McGuire and Danielle Gaines]
  • “What’s the Difference between ‘Major,’ ‘Significant,’ and All Those Other Federal Rule Categories?” [Clyde Wayne Crews, Jr., CEI]

October 18 roundup

  • Research by Todd Henderson et al. suggests that lawyers may often do well as CEOs, and anticipating and reducing litigation risk may be a key mechanism [Stephen Bainbridge]
  • Canada: Couple sues neighbors for $2.5 million for copying their house’s architecture [Rain Noe, Core77]
  • Abraham Lincoln on public choice and the aligning of interest with ethical duty [David Henderson]
  • Redistricting, Anne Arundel county executive allies with trial lawyers to file opioids suit, Baltimore police, Montgomery County minimum wage in my latest Maryland policy roundup [Free State Notes]
  • Black smokers in the U.S. are more likely than whites to prefer menthol, and prohibitionists frame foiling their wishes as a matter of racial justice [Christian Britschgi]
  • Here come the trustbusting conservatives back again, no more convincing this time around [Steven Greenhut]

Lawsuit: eateries’ switch to service-included policy was price-fixing conspiracy

Sued over tip division, some popular New York City restaurants switched to service-included pricing. Now, lawyers are suing them over that, calling it a price-fixing conspiracy in violation of antitrust laws and saying that the hike in menu prices was higher than the amount needed to cover servers’ compensation. [Steve Cuozzo, New York Post]

October 11 roundup

Labor and employment roundup

  • Welcome news: Labor Secretary Alex Acosta urges states to fix occupational licensing [Eric Boehm, Reason] Fresh thinking on the antitrust angle in a bill from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) [Ilya Shapiro, Cato] “Occupational licensing should not be used to keep honest Americans out of work” [Clark Neily, The Hill] Video of Heritage panel on the subject with Maureen Ohlhausen of the FTC, Alex Tabarrok, Paul Larkin, and Dexter Price [Marginal Revolution]
  • “The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has allowed an employee to pursue a disability discrimination claim based on the use of medical marijuana.” [Jon Hyman]
  • That’s how we’ll solve difficult issues of statutory interpretation. We’ll call names [Richard Thompson Ford, Take Care, on expansion of Title VII interpretation to sexual orientation, earlier here, here, etc.] More: Scott Greenfield;
  • If not for wise lawmakers like those in California, who would look out for our privacy? [Steven Greenhut on proposal to give unions private workers’ phone numbers and addresses]
  • D.C. politicians are one big reason residents east of Anacostia River have poor grocery options [Diana Furchtgott-Roth; minimum wage]
  • Uniform, predictable test needed for who is an “employee” and “employer” [Glenn Lammi, WLF, first and second posts]

Back to the Age of Antitrust?

Tougher antitrust enforcement, going beyond the consumer welfare standard applied by many enforcers in recent decades, is part of Democratic leaders’ “Better Deal” policy package. A good idea? [Alan Reynolds first and second Cato posts, Alden Abbott/Truth on the Market] “It is difficult even to communicate how much Amazon has improved my life…. I love it. So of course, politicians now want to burn it down.” [CoyoteBlog, see also] And Joshua Wright has a Twitter thread refuting “hipster antitrust.”

July 19 roundup

  • “Biometric Privacy Laws: How a Little-Known Illinois Law Made Facebook Illegal” [Jane Bambauer]
  • Organized dentists work to block legal recognition of independent dental therapist practices [Mary Jordan, Washington Post]
  • Some yearn to bring back Warren Court (or even more interventionist) antitrust doctrine. Just don’t [John McGinnis]
  • “O’Neil is the Wang of Ireland” says apparel trademark disputant [Timothy Geigner, Techdirt]
  • “Religious people should live under the same laws as everyone else” was a nice slogan while it lasted [Julie Zauzmer, Washington Post on nuns’ construction of chapel in field so as to block pipeline, plus resulting Twitter thread]
  • “Therapy animals are everywhere, but proof that they help is not” [Karin Brulliard, Chicago Tribune]

Free speech roundup

  • “Keeping this case in a pending status gives us one hell of a club” — how Nixon used antitrust to intimidate media [Guy Rolnik, Stigler Center ProMarket] For ruthlessness in bullying hostile press, Nixon and LBJ had nothing on FDR and his New Dealers [David Beito]
  • In which I display impatience with Claremont Colleges student no-platformers who signed a letter defending speaker shout-downs and demanding that conservative student journalists be disciplined [Scott Greenfield, more from Heather Mac Donald, earlier on shout-down of Mac Donald] More: statement by FIRE president Greg Lukianoff on situation at UC Berkeley. And: the campus speech wars reach Hood College [my new Free State Notes post]
  • Three reasons, none of them flattering, why GOP lawmakers might sign onto wacky tollgate-for-adult-material scheme [Elizabeth Nolan Brown; Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny, Daily Beast with more on promoter Chris Sevier and so-called Human Trafficking Prevention Act]
  • American Legislative Exchange Council, conservative group of state legislators that has itself been a target of anti-speech campaigns, launches Center to Protect Free Speech with focus on campus speech, donor privacy and commercial speech;
  • Flemming Rose: “I’m Not Willing to Sacrifice Freedom of Expression on the Altar of Cultural Diversity” [Reason interview with Nick Gillespie]
  • “But is it not shocking that virtuous characters should be defamed?” replied the Baron. “Let their actions refute such libels,” continued the President. An anecdote of Jefferson and Humboldt [David Post]