IN THE NEWS

Law 360 published an article by Allen Grunes and Maurice Stucke, “The Flawed European Remedy To Bayer-Monsanto Deal.”

Farmers in the United States have been battered for years by the rising costs of seeds and chemicals. It looks like things are only going to get worse. There were news reports last week that the U.S. Justice Department has reached an “agreement in principle” to give the green light to Bayer AG’s acquisition of rival Monsanto Co.

Bayer is the second largest supplier of pesticides worldwide, and is an important global seed company. Monsanto is the world’s largest supplier of seeds and sells the world’s most used pesticide. The combination of these two giants would violate U.S. antitrust laws on multiple counts. The two companies have reached an agreement on remedies with the European Commission. The European remedy allows the acquisition to proceed with Bayer divesting overlapping assets and transferring “digital farming” technology. Subject to commission approval, German chemical giant BASF will acquire the divestitures and technology.

The details of the “agreement in principle” between Bayer, Monsanto and the Justice Department are not public. It is a safe bet, however, that the Justice Department is poised to sign on to the European deal, perhaps with a few tweaks. Even so, the Bayer-Monsanto transaction is likely to harm U.S. farmers. This is true regardless of what sweeteners the companies have decided to throw in to secure Justice Department approval.

The article is available here (subscription required).

Fawn Johnson in her article, “Fair Play: The Facebook Conundrum,” quoted the comments by The Konkurrenz Group’s Maurice Stucke at the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting.  The April 15 article is available here.

Arwa Mahdawi in her April 13, 2018 article, “Is your friend getting a cheaper Uber fare than you are?,” quotes the Konkurrenz Group’s Maurice Stucke.  The Guardian article is available here.

Maurice Stucke will speak on April 11 at the 66th ABA Section of Antitrust Law Spring Meeting. His panel “Price-Bots: Are R2D2 and C3PO Tacitly Colluding?” will address  the potential for antitrust liability from the use of price-bots and pricing algorithms and, along with the audience, will participate in an interactive pricing exercise.  Paul H. Saint-Antoine, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, will moderate the panel, whose other speakers include:
• Ai Deng, Bates White Economic Consulting,
• Lesli C. Esposito, DLA Piper, and
• Joshua S. Gans, The Brattle Group.

This issue was explored in Maurice’s research co-authored with Ariel Ezrachi, including their book Virtual Competition,  report for the OECD, and Harvard Business Review article.

The Associated Press quoted The Konkurrenz Group’s Maurice Stucke on Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress.  The news story was carried by media outlets around the world, including NBC News.

In his article, “Facebook CEO expected to testify on user data breach in coming weeks,”
Jordan Graham quotes Maurice Stucke.  The March 28, 2018 Boston Herald article is available here.

The Harvard Business Review published Maurice Stucke’s article, “Here Are All the Reasons It’s a Bad Idea to Let a Few Tech Companies Monopolize Our Data.”  The March 27, 2018 article is available here.  A Spanish version is also available.

In his article, “This Is How We Take Power Back From Facebook (And Every Other Monopoly),” Ben Schiller cites the book, Virtual Competition, which Maurice Stucke co-authored.  The article is available here.

In his article, “AT&T-Time Warner trial: Why Corporate America is watching it so closely,” David Goldman quoted Maurice Stucke about the U.S. antitrust challenge of the AT&T/Time Warner deal, as well as the Bayer/Monsanto deal. The CNNMoney article is available here.

A White Paper prepared by the Konkurrenz Group on the Bayer-Monsanto merger was featured on several news sites.  The White Paper is available here.