A Storm is Brewing: How Federal Ambivalence Regarding Below-Cost Pricing Turns a Blind Eye to Monopoly Risk in the Beer Market

Large beer manufacturers, known colloquially as “Big Beer,” have been steadily losing market share to small, independent craft breweries. Big Beer wants it market share back, and in some cases will go to great lengths to try to defend its dominance—even anticompetitive conduct. Below-cost pricing is one avenue that presents a risk to independent craft breweries. This Article examines how Big Beer can manipulate the beer market in its favor by engaging in predatory pricing. Further, this Article proposes a solution that could be implemented on a nation-wide scale to curtail Big Beer’s anticompetitive activities with respect to pricing

Independent Craft Breweries Struggle Under Distribution Laws that Create a Power Imbalance in Favor of Wholesalers

Independent craft breweries are facing historic challenges under the COVID-19 pandemic. To make matters worse, many states prohibit a brewery from terminating a distribution contract with a wholesaler absent statutorily defined “good cause,” which typically means fraud, bankruptcy, or other illegal conduct. In this context, lagging sales or poor distribution performance are not grounds for a brewery to terminate a distribution contract. This means that it is nearly impossible, legally or financially, for an independent craft brewery to terminate a distribution contract with an unsatisfactory wholesaler. In essence, states have statutorily tipped the balance of power in favor of distributors over independent craft breweries based on the allegations that large beer manufacturers have too much bargaining power over distributors. One size does not fit all. Indeed, California is currently entertaining a bill to move from a more permissive relationship between breweries and distributors (allowing for termination generally) to a much more strict good cause model that other states have adopted. States must re-evaluate their distribution laws and reject good cause standards that tie a small brewery to a distributor in perpetuity. Stated plainly, good cause distribution statutes harm independent craft breweries, competition, and ultimately consumers

Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., Due Process and Strange Bedfellows

[As the 2022 Supreme Court term waned, the press and public waited with trepidation or excitement for noteworthy cases that addressed important policy questions, including affirmative action, student loan forgiveness, and conflicts between religious freedom and gay rights. Fewer people shared the concerns of Civil Procedure scholars who anxiously awaited the Court’s decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. For over a decade, the Court found that states violated due process in asserting personal jurisdiction over various defendants despite the lack of any meaningful burden on the defendant’s ability to defend against claims in the plaintiff’s choice of forum. Mallory raised concerns because of some of the Justices’ questions during oral argument and because the Court did not issue its decision until the end of the term. This led to speculation that the Court was about to radically alter its due process analysis in personal jurisdiction cases based on the original public meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment

Trans-equatorial migration and mixing in the wintering areas of a pelagic seabird

Despite increasing interest in long-distance migration, the wintering areas, migration corridors, and population mix in winter quarters of most pelagic marine predators are unknown. Here, we present the first study tracking migration movements of shearwaters through the non-breeding period. We used geolocators (global location sensing [GLS] units based on ambient light levels) to track 22 Cory's shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea) breeding in three different areas. Most birds wintered in one or more of three relatively small areas, all clearly associated with major coastal upwelling systems of the tropical and south Atlantic. Trans-equatorial movements were dominated by prevailing trade winds and westerlies, while calm, oligotrophic areas were avoided. Breeding populations clearly differed in their preference amongst the three major wintering areas, but showed substantial mixing. This illustrates the exceptional value of GLS, not only for determining and describing the influence of oceanographic features on migration patterns, but also for assessing population mix in winter quarters. This knowledge is essential to understanding the impacts of population-level threats, such as longlining, offshore windfarms, and oil spills on multiple breeding sites, and will be critical in devising conservation policies that guarantee the sustainable exploitation of the oceans

Understanding Oceanic Migrations with Intrinsic Biogeochemical Markers

Migratory marine vertebrates move annually across remote oceanic water masses crossing international borders. Many anthropogenic threats such as overfishing, bycatch, pollution or global warming put millions of marine migrants at risk especially during their long-distance movements. Therefore, precise knowledge about these migratory movements to understand where and when these animals are more exposed to human impacts is vital for addressing marine conservation issues. Because electronic tracking devices suffer from several constraints, mainly logistical and financial, there is emerging interest in finding appropriate intrinsic markers, such as the chemical composition of inert tissues, to study long-distance migrations and identify wintering sites. Here, using tracked pelagic seabirds and some of their own feathers which were known to be grown at different places and times within the annual cycle, we proved the value of biogeochemical analyses of inert tissue as tracers of marine movements and habitat use. Analyses of feathers grown in summer showed that both stable isotope signatures and element concentrations can signal the origin of breeding birds feeding in distinct water masses. However, only stable isotopes signalled water masses used during winter because elements mainly accumulated during the long breeding period are incorporated into feathers grown in both summer and winter. Our findings shed new light on the simple and effective assignment of marine organisms to distinct oceanic areas, providing new opportunities to study unknown migration patterns of secretive species, including in relation to human-induced mortality on specific populations in the marine environment