Happy summer bank holiday: The Tipline for 24 May 2019

Both GCR USA and our London colleagues are on holiday on Monday, but we have plenty of reading to fill your Memorial Day weekend. Contrary to former acting Federal Trade Commission chair Maureen Ohlhausen, current bureau of competition director Bruce Hoffman insists that the agency’s case against Qualcomm does not involve trying to tell a patent-holder how high a royalty rate it can get. He spoke at the inaugural GCR Live conference on antitrust in the digital economy in Palo Alto on Wednesday, where labour economist Marshall Steinbaum made his GCR Live debut on a panel about technology platforms. Taking a break from the usual focus on GAFA – Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple – Steinbaum argued that Uber should be regarded as a price-fixer unless the company either recognises drivers as employees or allows them to compete against each other on price.