Features
Portugal’s competition bar
11 October 2019
A new chair at Portugal’s Competition Authority has triggered a dramatic rise in behavioural investigations, which along with merger work kept the country’s competition lawyers busy. Matt Richards considers the firms and individuals leading the way.
Monopsony - neither new nor fake news
07 October 2019
Monopsony, a word previously used primarily by antitrust cognoscenti, has gone mainstream. Presidential hopefuls worry about the scourge of buyer power and draft legislation to address it more explicitly in the antitrust laws. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has held public hearings to discuss the topic, and both the FTC and the Department of Justice have brought challenges involving monopsony. Arnold & Porter partners Deborah Feinstein in Washington, DC, and John Schmidt in London explore the ongoing debate about monopsony and the issues that have arisen in recent cases.
DC Roundtable
07 October 2019
Critics say competition enforcers are struggling to keep up with the effects of growing market power. The first GCR Live DC workshop featured economists Hal Singer and Steven Salop presenting proposals to police vertical integration, to an audience of practitioners, enforcers, academics and advocates.
Australia’s competition bar
07 October 2019
The digital economy and a determination to bring down the hammer on collusion have made Australia’s competition authority an enforcer to fear. Charles McConnell talks to the lawyers who face off against – and sometimes act for – a top-flight agency.
Sainsbury’s/Asda: Experts react
07 October 2019
With the dust settled on the blocked Sainsbury’s/Asda deal, Matt Richards asked legal, economic and consumer experts for their take on the failed merger. Did the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority assess the deal correctly and what does this mean for future supermarket tie-ups?
Germany’s competition bar
07 October 2019
Germany’s competition bar finds itself at the heart of European and global antitrust. The Federal Cartel Office is one of the most prolific enforcers in the world, and German firms are rising to the challenge. Janith Aranze takes a look at how Germany’s best competition practices are shaping up.
When robots collude
27 September 2019
Today, cartelists are less likely to meet in a smoke-filled room than in a chat room. Is the next step for them to avoid meeting at all? Charley Connor explores how artificial intelligence could enable companies to avoid both antitrust liability and competition.
Face the nation
20 September 2019
From 2013 to 2017, three of the divestitures that the US Federal Trade Commission ordered as remedies for otherwise anticompetitive mergers in consumer-facing markets failed in various ways. Pallavi Guniganti explores how other competition authorities have used consumer surveys to inform merger analysis in these markets.
Firewalls: separation short of a breakup
12 July 2019
“Break up Big Tech” has become a rallying cry on both ends of the political spectrum, as people around the world worry about dominant technology companies’ ability to buy up potential rivals and extend their reach into other areas of business. Pallavi Guniganti considers whether firewalls – separating business units operationally while keeping them under the same corporate umbrella – could address some of these competition concerns.
Transatlantic convergence in merger control? – Time for EU procedural and institutional reform
18 June 2019
White & Case partner Tilman Kuhn argues that with the ever-increasing duration of the merger review process and continued lack of timely and effective judicial redress, the need for procedural and even institutional reforms has become more pressing than ever.