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More on Letter of Intent and Release Bargaining

Last month I highlighted the story of DeMarcus Cousins, a blue chip high school basketball recruit who was playing a game of chicken with the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) over signing his National Letter of Intent — the letter that commits a player to attend the university and imposes the penalty of giving up a ... More on Letter of Intent and Release Bargaining

Is Antitrust Too Complicated for Generalist Judges?

One of the highlights of my recent time as Scholar in Residence at the Federal Trade Commission was the opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds around on antitrust issues on investigations and policy projects as well some academic projects.  The subject of this post is one of those academic projects.  Motivated by ... Is Antitrust Too Complicated for Generalist Judges?

Caplan on the Law as a Phony Discipline

Bryan Caplan writes: At risk of offending my many friends in the legal academy, I think that law is a shockingly phony discipline.  Virtually everyone – liberal, conservative, Marxist, libertarian, or whatever – imagines that the law conveniently agrees with what they favor on non-legal grounds.  Almost no one admits that many, if not most, ... Caplan on the Law as a Phony Discipline

Economic Issues in the Ovation Complaint

On December 16, 2008, the FTC filed a complaint against Ovation Pharmaceuticals that challenged its 2006 acquisition of the drug Neoprofen from Abbott.  (The acquisition had fallen beneath the HSR thresholds and thus was not subject to an HSR investigation prior to consummation).  While the complaint and case itself raises some interesting issues which I ... Economic Issues in the Ovation Complaint

Welcome Guest Blogger Mary Coleman

Bill’s shift to emeritus status and move to Arizona are not the only changes at TOTM for the coming new year. We’ve also got some plans to make sure that we’re feeding our loyal readers a steady stream of law, economics, and business content.  One of these plans can’t wait for the New Year.  We’ve ... Welcome Guest Blogger Mary Coleman

Bill's News

There’s good and bad news for Truth on the Market, and I wanted to share both with our loyal readers. The good news:  Bill, co-founder of this blog and stalwart of our early blogging days’ focus on securities regulation and corporate law and governance, has accepted a new, senior position at the University of Arizona ... Bill's News

Dominant Incumbent, Meet the New Entrant

The new Competition Law Center at George Washington University School of Law (see earlier post at ACP here), funded by a $5.1 million cy pres award from alum and plaintiff’s lawyer Michael Hausfeld (formerly of Cohen, Milsten Hausfeld and Toll, now Cohen, Milsten, Sellers and Toll) will be providing some competition to the nearby American ... Dominant Incumbent, Meet the New Entrant

Top Ten Antitrust Articles of 2008

Its the time for end of the year lists. In conjunction with Danny Sokol’s survey of nominations for article of the year in 2008 (here are last year’s entries and here’s my list of the top 10 from last year), and without further ado, here are my personal, idiosyncratic, completely non-scientifically derived top 10 antitrust ... Top Ten Antitrust Articles of 2008

Presenting Complex Economic Theories to Judges

This fascinating OECD document compiling submissions on the topic is a gold mine of observations on purported best practices for presenting economic testimony to judges and issues facing competition authorities and judges deciding complex antitrust cases on the basis of complex economic evidence. Here is one excerpt from the U.S. submission that caught my eye: ... Presenting Complex Economic Theories to Judges

Interim Final Rules Amending Parts III and IV Rules of FTC Rules of Practice Issued

The FTC announced today that it has approved a notice adopting interim final rules amending Parts III and IV of its rules of practice. As boring as that sound, this is a big deal. Here is the Federal Register notice. There are a number of changes, for instance, deadlines are imposed to expedite the pre-hearing ... Interim Final Rules Amending Parts III and IV Rules of FTC Rules of Practice Issued

DOJ Files Another Section 2 Case

Press release here. Here’s an excerpt: The complaint alleges that post-acquisition Microsemi raised prices significantly on small signal transistors certified by the Defense Supply Center Columbus (DSCC), a component of the DOD, at the Joint Army-Navy Technical Exchange-Visual Inspection (JANTXV) and Joint Army-Navy Space (JANS) levels of reliability on its qualified manufacturers list or QML. ... DOJ Files Another Section 2 Case

Teachable Moments

Don Boudreaux turns the Illinois corruption scandal into a teachable moment on rent seeking (HT: Todd Zywicki). By the way, there has never been a better time to read this. In another teachable moment story related to George Mason, my colleague Neomi Rao’s Constitutional Law students were treated to an end of the year lecture ... Teachable Moments