Archive for April 2010
Back to the Front
Back from Moscow, an absolutely awesome place.
A number of puzzling things though:
- The density of Porsche, Lamborghinis and other sports cars is far higher than in rich western European countries;
- Prices for consumer goods are not lower than in western European countries;
- Most shops are opened overnight;
- Most dairy goods are imported from the West. In fact, besides Oil and Gas, Russia seems to be very dependent on imports from other economies. This is strange though, and I wonder why Russia keeps importing basic goods, incorporating little technology, rather than developping local production.
- Traffic in Moscow is horrendous. Their metro network, which dates back from Staline, has nothing to envy to the dirty London tube, or to the old Paris metro.
Now, besides this, a number of hot, burning news:
- Registration for the IEJE’s Conference on the Reform of the New Framework for Electronic Communications is still open. The Conference will take place on 30 April. See here for more.
- The 44th Lunch Talk of the GCLC, entitled “The Lisbon Treaty and the Future of EU Competition Policy”, will take place on 28 April at the Marriott Hotel in Brussels. Hereafter, the registration form Registration Form – 44th GCLC Lunch Talk – 28 April 2010
- Antoine Masson received the Montesquieu Prize for the book he edited last year on the Legal Aspects of Firms’ Business Strategies. Congratulations!
(Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)
An announcement: blog posts from Harvard Law School students
I am currently enrolled in a great seminar on “Antitrust, Technology and Innovation” taught by Prof. Philip Malone at Harvard Law School. As part of the requirements of the seminar, everyone attending it is supposed to write several posts on an internal blog only accessible to the rest of the class. Given that my classmates are a truly brilliant group of students, the discussions held in the blog have been extremely interesting. Accordingly, Nicolas and I thought that it would be very useful, particularly for our student-readers, to have access to these discussions and to be able to contribute with their own views.
Therefore, in the coming weeks, and in parallel with ordinary posting activity, we will be publishing here some of the posts written by HLS students on a number of selected issues, as well as follow-up comments by other members of the class.
Prof. Malone has kindly allowed us to include a reference to his terrific syllabus (really a great source of information) so that anyone interested will be able to better follow the discussions.
Ranking the rankings
A few weeks ago, law.com featured an article echoing the controversy surrounding U.S. News’ (a magazine that has traditionally ranked law schools in the US) announcement that it would start ranking law firms. Soon after the announcement was made, the American Bar Association passed a resolution committing to examine the methodology employed by several rankings. It is reported that opponents to the resolution claimed it could constitute an antitrust violation, but that’s not the issue I wanted to touch upon.
Law firm rankings are certainly very good sources of information and, as illustrated by market entries, quite possibly a profitable business (not really surprising: I would invest in any industry where lawyers’ egos were one of the possible sources of revenue!).
I tend to believe that rankings do their job thoroughly, but I confess that sometimes I’ve come up with rankings of particular firms or lawyers that I didn’t quite understand (at least not solely by reference to their real merits or their alleged lack of merits). My disagreement with specific issues is hardly surprising since we all probably have a different idea of how an ideal ranking would look like. Nonetheless, I suspect we could find some common ground in determining which rankings contain more “surprising features” overall.
All this brings to mind a question that I heard many times from a brilliant, well-ranked, Brussels-based partner: when will someone rank the rankings?
(Image possibly subject to copyright: source here)
Closed
I will be away most of next week with only sporadic access to the Internet. Normal posting activity on Chillin’Competition will resume as of 12 April. Meanwhile, Alfonso will certainly drop a few lines on this blog.
1 April
For all antitrust geeks: read the American Antitrust Institute 1 April column (pasted in full below). Simply hilarious.
AMERICAN ANTITRUST INSTITUTE LAUNCHES THE ANTITRUST CHANNEL |
| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Bert Foer April 1, 2010 (202) 276-6002 bfoer@antitrustinstitute.org WASHINGTON, DC –
In a major breakthrough for cable television, the American Antitrust Institute (AAI) today announced that it has purchased the Golf II Channel from Comcast/NBC and will immediately convert it to The Antitrust Channel, airing antitrust news and events 24/7. AAI President Albert A. Foer refused to disclose the amount the AAI paid for the Golf Channel. He promised that The Antitrust Channel will not dismiss any reasonably plausible antitrust views, although this would exclude those of the Chicago School. Foer reported that content development is well underway and provided examples of the kind of programming that will be aired on the new channel:
In a move clearly aimed at expanding the public’s interest in the new channel, the AAI invites viewers to send additional ideas to aai@antitrustinstitute.org. Look for The Antitrust Channel on the cable monopoly in your area. If it is not being offered, call the FCC to complain and send a copy of your complaint to the AAI. ### About the American Antitrust Institute The American Antitrust Institute is an independent non-profit education, research and advocacy organization. Since its formation in 1998, the AAI’s mission has been to increase the role of competition, assure that competition works in the interests of consumers, and challenge abuses of concentrated economic power in the American and world economy. To learn more about the AAI, please visit www.antitrustinstitute.org. Because previous April 1 columns have been reported verbatim by the media as news, our attorneys have advised us that these columns should be accompanied by a disclaimer. We have rejected this advice. (Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)
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Duty to deal
Yesterday, Ofcom (the UK electronic communications regulators), decided to force Sky Sports to offer its TV packages Sports 1 and 2 to other TV retailers – for example, cable, terrestrial and IPTV – at a wholesale price set by Ofcom.
No doubt this decision will trigger massive controversy, in an area where exclusivity has long been hailed as THE sole efficient business model. I can certainly see an “output enhancing” effect on users (increased availability to customers). The remedy may thus be good in terms of allocative efficiency. In addition, one can anticipate a downward effect on prices for the acquisition of sports rights. Purchasers will bid lower, for fear of having to share their sports rights later.
My gut feeling: in light of the obscene amounts lately paid by TV channels for sports rights, and of the possibly detrimental snow-ball effects this may have in the long term on sports clubs, Ofcom’s decision does not look too bad.
Thanks to E. Provost for the pointer.
I chose the picture as a reference to the famous Aspen Skiing case.
(Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)
PS: I am told by a good friend, Chris Brown, that “OFCOM has not in this decision imposed a duty to deal. Sky already dealt with rivals, including Virgin Media (the subject of a previous dispute), so you can already watch Sky Sports on platforms other than Sky’s; what OFCOM has forced Sky to do in this decision is to reduce the wholesale price it charges to Virgin and others by roughly 25%“.
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