Category: Media

Lance Lambert, in his April 5th article, “Here’s How They Play Monopoly in America, and Who Wins: Market concentration in the U.S. has reached a three-decade high, while the government has opened fewer antitrust cases,” quotes Maurice Stucke.

“When you have significant economic power, that can bring political power and anti-democratic pressures,” said Maurice Stucke, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and a former Justice Department attorney. “We’re starting to see highly concentrated industries, profits accruing to a handful of firms, and fewer startups. And then you look at the impacts it could have on innovation and wealth inequality.” 

The Obama administration did block several mergers in its second term, stopping mega-deals like Anthem Inc.’s merger with Cigna Corp. Stucke said the federal government needs to crack down harder on mergers, which can contribute to increased market concentration. 

Stucke, who spoke at last week’s conference, said attendees were interested in how President Donald Trump might approach antitrust matters. . . .

The obvious concern, Stucke said, is that Trump will treat monopolies the way his Republican predecessor did. Still, he said, Trump could very well surprise people.

“Everyone says it’s going to be like the Bush administration,” Stucke said. “But I’m looking at Makan, and depending on who he brings in as his deputies, there could be really strong intellectual leadership. I don’t see him as an ideologue wedded to the old economic beliefs.”​

​The article is available here.

On March 16, 2017, EU Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager made an important speech concerning the potential anticompetitive risks of pricing algorithms. Her speech relied on examples from Maurice Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi’s book, Virtual Competition. ​​Several media outlooks reporting the speech discussed the book’s findings, including Law360

Here

In his article, “Experts Question Effectiveness of Antitrust Approaches in Digital Economy,” Joel Stashenko of the New York Law Journal quoted Maurice Stucke’s comments at a recent forum sponsored by the antitrust law section of the New York State Bar Association.

The panel included Ethan Litwin and Alec Burnside of Dechert, Jason Furman, the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under the Obama administration, and Columbia law professor Tim Wu.

The article is available here.

In his article “Trump’s CEO meetings raise concerns among ethics lawyers,” Josh Boak quotes Maurice Stucke:

Part of the challenge is not knowing what was precisely said at the meetings.

“We don’t know really what they were discussing, what Trump’s response was to that and to what extent that will influence the antitrust review,” said Maurice Stucke, a former attorney in the Justice Department’s antitrust division who teaches at the University of Tennessee College of Law.

The article is available here.

Steve Lohr in his article “Data Could Be the Next Tech Hot Button for Regulators” quotes Maurice Stucke:

“Maurice Stucke, a former Justice Department antitrust official and a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law, who also spoke at the gathering, said one danger was that consumers might be afforded less privacy than they would choose in a more competitive market.

The competition concerns echo those that gradually emerged in the 1990s about software and Microsoft. The worry is that as the big internet companies attract more users and advertisers, and gather more data, a powerful ‘network effect’ effectively prevents users and advertisers from moving away from a dominant digital platform, like Google in search or Facebook in consumer social networks.”

The article is available here.