Tel Aviv-Berkeley LL.M. Program 2017

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

July 31, 2017 (Monday)

Topics for discussion

• A roadmap for this course
• The goal(s) of antitrust
• First draft of the “antitrust superstructure”
  • Three market power levels (low, medium, high)
  • Two levels of conduct regulation: Baseline prohibitions and special obligations
  • Three basic anticompetitive strategies (Collusion, exclusion, leveraging)
  • Two modes of analysis: rule of reason and per se
  • Distributed antitrust enforcement in the U.S. (Private plaintiffs; DOJ & FTC; State Attorneys General)
  • The 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
• A look at an uncontroversial baseline: Criminal cartel conduct
  • Price fixing, market allocation, bid rigging
  • How cartels work: Creating artificial scarcity to get a bigger slice of a smaller (and more expensive) pie
• The impact of the current administration on the rule of law in general and antitrust enforcement in particular

Reading Materials

• U.S. Antitrust laws (Super short version)
• U.S. v. Andreas, 216 F.3d 645 (7th Cir. 2000). Excerpt
• Key Points 01 and 02

Optional

• Hanno Kaiser, U.S. Antitrust Cheat Sheet (2011)
• 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 1, 2016 (Tuesday)

Topics for discussion

• The rule of reason
• The ancillary restraints doctrine
• Apple: The U.S. v. Apple “eBooks” case (2015)
  • Disruption via de novo entry as per se illegal conduct?
• Uber: The Meyer v. Kalanick case (ongoing)
  • Algorithmic collusion

Reading Materials

• United States v. Apple, Inc., 791 F.3d 290 (2d Cir. 2015). Excerpts
• Meyer v. Kalanick, 174 F. Supp.3d 817 (S.D.N.Y. 2016). Excerpts

Optional

• Broad. Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc., 441 U.S. 1 (1979). Excerpts

Class 3: Platform Wars and the Modern Law of Monopolization

August 2, 2017 (Wednesday)

Topics for discussion

• Monopolization and abuse of dominance cases in the high tech sector
  • U.S. v. Microsoft (2001)
  • EC v. Google/Search (2017)
  • German Federal Cartel office investigation of Facebook (ongoing)
• Network effects and market power (Operating systems and applications; mobile operating systems and services; internet search; social networks; messaging applications, etc.)
• Exclusionary strategies (exclusion, leveraging)
• Exploitative strategies (e.g., in the EC)
• Antitrust and privacy regulation

Reading Materials

• United States v. Microsoft, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001). Excerpts. Super high-level summary.
• European Commission: Google Search Fine (2017)
• German Federal Cartel Office: Facebook Investigation (ongoing)

Optional

• Hanno Kaiser, Microsoft Monopolization Offenses Chart (2008)
• Hanno Kaiser, Are Closed Systems an Antitrust Problem?, Competition Policy International 91, Vol.7, No.1 (2011)

Class 4: Technology M&A in the Real World

August 3, 2017 (Thursday)

Topics for discussion

• Is your deal HSR notifiable?
• The U.S. regulatory process (e.g., pull and refile, second request, timing agreements, consent order settlements, litigation)
• Three questions that capture 90% of all M&A antitrust issues
• The three categories of evidence that the agencies are looking for
• Gun jumping, integration planning
• Recent technology transactions
  • Facebook/WhatsApp (2014)
  • Microsoft/Linkedin (2016)

Reading Materials

• FTC/DOJ, Horizontal Merger Guidelines (2010). Excerpts
• Facebook/WhatsApp (2014) Excerpts
• Microsoft/Linkedin (2016) Press Release

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