Old wine in new bottles: some observations about current monopolization litigation

Journal ArticleLawyers seldom have the luxury of speaking in generalities. The particulars of the cases and the client's problems we deal with usually limit our immediate concerns and thinking to the facts at hand. Facts, unlike the generalities law professors are allowed to dispense in the classroom or the unreal assumptions economists are sometimes allowed to ignore in constructing or applying abstract models, simply refuse to be put down. Because I count myself a lawyer first, at least when in the company of other lawyers, I welcome the opportunity to escape the limitations of particular facts and to speak at this Institute in generalities, namely some generalities about the current wave of monopolization litigation. Our hosts have indeed been generous not only by asking me to talk about the general features unique to current monopolization litigation, but by also asking me to be controversial because most of us are probably drowsy after consuming too much at lunch

Antitrust and the newspapers a comment on S. 1312

Journal ArticleThe American newspaper industry, often called "The Fourth Estate," apparently believes it has fallen on hard times. The aristocrats of the Fourth Estate, the daily newspapers, came to the Ninetieth Congress seeking a boon: relaxation of the rigors of antitrust policy as applied to mergers and joint agency operations by otherwise competing newspapers. A bill has been introduced, S. 1312, which is sponsored by fifteen Senators of diverse political and economic views, all save one having one thing in common-the presence of newspaper joint agency operations in their home states.

Function and dysfunction of per se rules in vertical market restraints

Journal ArticleIn 1963, the Supreme Court held it did not know enough about the "economic and business stuff" out of which nonprice vertical market restraints "emerge" to determine whether they should be measured by a "rule of reason" test or one of "per se illegality.'" Seventeen years later, after one flip2 and one flop3 (or vice-versa depending on your view) by the Court and extensive academic speculation on all sides of the issue,4 only one certain conclusion remains: We do not know enough to generalize conclusively about the impact of a wide variety of vertical nonprice restraints on the preservation of a competitive process and the goals of antitrust policy, which the process seeks to achieve

Which past is prolog? the future of private antitrust enforcement

Journal ArticleFor the past four decades, and despite doubts voiced 100 years ago by the principal draftsmen of the Sherman Act,' the primary enforcement of the federal antitrust laws has occurred through private litigation.

Professional ethics and the lawyer's duty to self

Journal ArticleA peaceful society depends on the high ethical standards of its lawyers: Communal trust in the legal process gives force to the law that helps to maintain society as a cohesive organism. In the past decade of turmoil, mutual trust and confidence in our institutions has declined; individual interests have been increasingly collectivized and subjected to legal processes.1 Under such circumstances, the ethics of lawyers have become still more noticeable and important

Reagan administration's antitrust policy, "original intent" and the legislative history of the Sherman Act

Journal ArticleUntil the advent of the Reagan Administration there was an general consensus in the courts and in most of academia with regard to the values underlying and the goals of Federal antitrust policy. In Appalachian Coals, Inc. v. United States,' the Supreme Court summarized the goals of the Sherman Act as being to prevent "undue restraints of interstate commerce, "to maintain "appropriate freedom" of interstate commerce and "to afford protection from the subversive or coercive influences of monopolistic behavior.

Antitrust allegory

Journal ArticleJustice SPENCER delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a treble damage action under the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 et seq., the only antitrust case of any kind filed in the federal courts in the past two years.1 We take note of the fact that the Attorney General announced a year ago that ninety-five percent of the personnel in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice had been transferred to other duties in the Department following the successful completion of its criminal prosecutions against the only remaining road builders not then in jail for price-fixing

Antitrust jurisprudence: a symposium on the economic, political and social goals of antitrust policy

Journal ArticleFelix S. Cohen has observed that [a]n ethics, like a metaphysics, is no more certain and no less dangerous because it is unconsciously held. There are few judges, psychoanalysts, or economists today who do not begin a consideration of their typical problems with some formula designed to cause all moral ideals to disappear and to produce an issue purified for the procedure of positive empirical science. But the ideals have generally retired to hats from which later wonders will magically arise.

University and human values: introspection

Journal ArticleIt is reported that Socrates, the patron saint of law professors and many other teachers, was convicted and sentenced to death by the people of Athens on a three-count indictment: for refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, for introducing other and new divinities, and for "corrupting" the youth. It is the hope of this self-claimed follower of Socrates that this audience will be above demanding that sort of remedy for what I say tonight