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.