Tel Aviv-Berkeley LL.M. Program 2016

Technology Antitrust

Hanno Kaiser. University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, Room 100; Time: 9-11:45 am

Class 1: Technology Antitrust: A Framework and a Baseline Case

August 8, 2016 (Monday)

Topics for discussion

• Antitrust policy
• Distributed antitrust enforcement in the U.S.
  • Private plaintiffs
  • DOJ & FTC
  • State Attorneys General
• Analytical framework
  • Coordinated/unilateral
  • Horizontal/vertical
  • Per se/rule of reason
• Legal framework
  • §1 of the Sherman Act
  • §2 of the Sherman Act
  • §7 of the Clayton Act
  • §5 of the FTC Act
  • Hart-Scott-Rodino (“HSR”) Act
• Criminal price fixing: A baseline case

Reading Materials

• U.S. Antitrust laws
• Hanno Kaiser, U.S. Antitrust Cheat Sheet (2011)
• U.S. v. Andreas, 216 F.3d 645 (7th Cir. 2000). Excerpt
• Key Points 01 Goals of antitrust
• Key Points 02 Rule of reason, per se categories

Optional

• Hanno Kaiser, Excerpt from Antitrust Law And Policy: An Introduction (2012)
• Scott Hammond, “Caught in the Act: Inside an International Cartel" (2005)
• Video footage from the Lysine cartel (YouTube)

Class 2: Disruptive Business Models or Illegal Cartels?

August 9, 2016 (Tuesday)

Topics for discussion

• Disruption via de novo entry as per se illegal conduct?
• Platform competition and price effects
• Collective licensing and the aggregation of IP rights
• Anatomy of a complex civil antitrust litigation, involving multiple defendants, DOJ, State Attorneys General as parens patriae, and private class action plaintiffs, etc.
• Hiring cartels?

Reading Materials

• Broad. Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc., 441 U.S. 1 (1979). Excerpts
• United States v. Apple Inc., et al., United States v. Apple, Inc., 791 F.3d 290 (2d Cir. 2015). Excerpts
• United States v. Adobe Systems, Inc., Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corporation, Intuit, Inc., and Pixar (2010) Complaint.

Optional

• Dan Wall & Hanno Kaiser, Brief of Economists as Amici Curiae in Support of Apple, Amicus Brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in re U.S. v. Apple Inc. (2015).

Class 3: Platform Wars and the Modern Law of Monopolization

August 11, 2016 (Thursday)

Topics for discussion

• Monopolization and abuse of dominance cases in the high tech sector
  • U.S. v. Microsoft (2001)
  • EC v. Google/Search (pending)
  • EC v. Google/Android (pending)
  • German Federal Cartel office investigation of Facebook (pending)
• Network effects and market power
  • Operating systems and applications
  • Mobile operating systems and services
  • Internet search
  • Social networks
  • Messaging applications
  • Single brand "aftermarkets"
• Exclusionary strategies
  • Locking up OEMs and distribution channels
  • Tying and bundling
  • Attacking interoperability layers (e.g., Java)
  • “Predatory innovation” and breaking interoperability
  • “Embrace, extend, extinguish"
  • Product disparagement and FUD
  • Planned obsolescence and the "hard switch"

Reading Materials

• United States v. Microsoft, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001). Excerpts
• Hanno Kaiser, Microsoft Monopolization Offenses Chart (2008)

Optional

• Martyn Burke, Pirates of Silicon Valley (2005).
• Hanno Kaiser, Are Closed Systems an Antitrust Problem?, Competition Policy International 91, Vol.7, No.1 (2011)

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