Maurice Stucke Speaks at NYSBA Annual Conference

Maurice Stucke participated in the Antitrust Law Section Meeting​​ at the annual New York State Bar Association conference. The panel discussed “Has Antitrust Failed?”:

Has antitrust allowed too much concentration?  The five largest banks account for 45% of banking assets, up from 25% in 2000.  The top 100 companies in the U.S. accounted for 46% of GDP in 2013, up from 33% in 1994.  In 1990, the top three Detroit carmakers had a market cap of $36 billion and 1.2 million employees; today, the top three Silicon Valley firms have a market cap greater than $1 trillion, and only 137,000 employees. Are we already too concentrated?  Have the global high-tech, big data companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook already seized control of big data? What will be the impact of our new consolidation? Will consolidation have negative implications for innovation, consumer choice and other competitive effects that are not easily measured?

Ethan Litwin of Dechert LLP moderated the panel. The other panelists were Alec J. Burnside, Dechert LLP, Brussels, Belgium, Jason Furman, former Chairman, U.S. Council of Economic Advisors, and Professor Timothy Wu, Columbia University Law School.

Maurice Stucke Speaks at Digital Book World Conference

Maurice Stucke closed the two-day conference in presenting his and Ariel Ezrachi’s book, Virtual Competition.

Mary Rasenberger, Executive Director of the Authors Guild, moderated the discussion about the book’s findings and what they mean for books and authors.

The conference attracts a cross-section of the content industry, from presidents, CEOs, editors, marketers and publicists of large and small houses, newspapers, magazines and digital-only media firms, to agents, authors, booksellers, librarians and technologists.

Brussels Event for New Book, Virtual Competition

The Liege Competition and Innovation Institute hosted on December 1, 2016 a roundtable discussion of Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice Stucke’s new book, Virtual Competition.

Cyril Ritter, Case officer at DG Competition, EU Commission and Ashwin Ittoo, Professor, HEC Management School, University of Liege, provided comments, and Nicolas Petit moderated the roundtable.

 

EDPS-BEUC Joint Conference on September 29

​Allen Grunes will be speaking at the upcoming EDPS-BEUC joint conference in Brussels, entitled “Big data, individual rights and smart enforcement.”

This conference brings together leading regulators and experts to consider the state of regulation, focusing on key areas of economic and societal change, the platform economy and the internet of things, and explores two policy and regulatory responses, including EU support for a tracking-free space on the internet and a new network for authorities to share information across sectoral boundaries.

The agenda may be found here.

Media Outlets Cite Report by The Konkurrenz Group

In its article, “Bayer’s Monsanto Acquisition to Face Politically Charged Scrutiny,” Reuters quotes a report prepared by the Konkurrenz Group on the merger.  The article also quotes its co-author Maurice Stucke:

Maurice Stucke, formerly in the Justice Department now with the Konkurrenz Group, said it was highly unlikely that Obama administration antitrust enforcers, who have knocked down a long list of big mergers in concentrated industries this year, would make the final decision in the Bayer-Monsanto deal.

“Merger reviews of this complexity would take six to nine months,” Stucke said. “This would be the first major test of the new administration.”

Other media outlets, including Forbes (Poland), TheStreet and The Irish Times, cited the report.