Daniel Hanley
Senior Legal Analyst at the Open Markets Institute.
Newsletter: https://danielhanley.substack.com
- The final version of Tara Pincock and I's paper detailing the intrinsic fairness foundations in antitrust law was just published in the latest online version of the Washington & Lee Law Review. Enjoy! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
- Yet another letter from members of congress urging the FTC and DOJ to enforce the Robinson-Patman Act. Good! www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/re... (this is, by my count, the fifth letter from lawmakers advocating for RPA enforcement).
- Katharina Pistor’s new book The Law of Capitalism and How to Transform It is fantastic and a must read. yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...
- I’m excited to announce that today @openmarkets.bsky.social and Mission:data are jointly releasing a new report co-authored by Michael Murray, Sandeep Vaheesan, Katherine Wyszkowski, and myself. A Thread and links below. www.openmarketsinstitute.org/publications...
- In our report, we discuss that the exploding cost of electricity – due in part to voracious appetite of tech giant data centers – can be off-set by the usage of what are known as virtual power plants (VPPs).
- VPPs are internet connected devices that can automatically turn off and on Wi-Fi-connected appliances to modify the electrical load on the power grid.
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View full threadIf you want to hear more about the paper, RSVP to a conference call on Monday, December 15, hosted by @capitolforum.bsky.social. Michael, Katherine, and I will be walking people through the paper, its importance, and our proposals. thecapitolforum.com/events/confe...
- A good heuristic to determine if antitrust scholarship is worth reading is if there is a favorable citation to Senator Sherman's quote about not tolerating "a king over...the necessaries of life." 21 Cong. Rec. 2457 (1890).
- Given the recent Epic Games ruling and controlling law, Google’s (attempted) move to kill all alternative methods of installing apps on Android and to require all applications to go through its exclusive system would violate antitrust laws. tuta.com/blog/google-...
- Corporations want our entire society to bend to their will. Delaware gave corporations basically everything just short of complete control and has an entire legislative apparatus devoted to appeasement—and that's apparently just not enough. www.wsj.com/opinion/why-...
- FYI. We don’t have to accept efficiency as a synonym for firing workers. We can block/limit job-cutting strategies and incentivize firms to pursue efficiency built on skill and human input.
- I think the AWS outage is a warning shot. It’s clear the cloud must be regulated as a public utility and Signal must be updated to support decentralized, user-operated servers to break free from dominant cloud providers. What do others think?
- Reminder: SCOTUS asked the Solicitor General for their input on the Duke Energy Carolinas lawsuit—a incredibly important case that could kneecap yet another aspect of Section 2. www.scotusblog.com/cases/case-f...
- If the DOJ wants to showcase a real interest in enforcing the antitrust laws & vigorously litigate their current lawsuits, this is the moment to do so.
- I cannot think of a more perfect moment for Linux and Apple than right now. Software developers should use Microsoft’s purposeful abandonment of Windows 10 (and the hundreds of millions of PCs that still run it) to free themselves from the company’s control. www.tomshardware.com/software/ope...
- Excited to share my new @openmarkets.bsky.social expert brief: “The Enduring Force of the Federal Antitrust Laws.” As I detail in this new paper, despite decades of judicial retreat, the federal antitrust laws remain powerful tools to fight monopoly power and corporate domination.
- The brief outlines six key enforcement avenues still robust under current law — showing how federal, state, and private actors can act even when federal leadership lags. static1.squarespace.com/static/5e449... Here’s what it covers:
- Mergers. Courts continue to apply the “structural presumption” from Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U.S. 321 (1963). If a merger creates a firm with a large market share, it’s presumptively illegal — moreover efficiency defenses don’t save it.
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View full threadRead the full @openmarkets.bsky.social expert brief here: static1.squarespace.com/static/5e449...
- In an interview with PBS marketing his new book, former Justice Anthony Kennedy expresses no remorse about his Citizens United decision and instead "hopes" voters take into consideration which candidates are receiving lots of money. 🤬 youtu.be/jMneFUWkWJI?...
- Finally, a decent decision from the Supreme Court. Today, the Court denied a petition to get rid of the per se rule on tying. This is incredibly important (E.g., Google ad tech district court decision!). www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?...
- There’s something truly terrifying about how casually tech oligarchs now describe their plans to restructure society. They are publicly pitching to investors and governments a future where we are all obedient subjects under their control.
- Remember, this decision isn’t about POTUS’s authority to remove officials for poor performance or the ability to enact the executive’s agenda. Instead, this decision is about whether dissent should exist at all in our regulatory system. SCOTUS effectively says it shouldn’t.
- #BREAKING: Over dissents from Justices Sotomayor, Kagan & Jackson, #SCOTUS grants a stay in the Slaughter case (allowing President Trump to remove the last Dem member of the FTC), *and* grants certiorari "before judgment" to decide whether to formally overrule its 1935 ruling in Humphrey's Executor.
- Voting with your dollars is one of the public’s most effective peaceful tools to reward or punish corporate behavior. But its power depends on competitive markets. When lawmakers/regulators facilitate consolidation they are undermining this vital form of democratic accountability.
- Maybe, just maybe, dominant corporations are a fundamental threat to democracy. www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
- A central question in antitrust policy is what do we want firms to do with their money. Money can be spent on socially desirable or wasteful/harmful conduct. Wasteful/Harmful: mergers, exclusive deals, predatory pricing Desirable: increased wages and productive capacity.
- Friendly reminder. Competition is not a per se societial good. It’s value is dependent on the parties affected, as well as its intensity and scope.
- Antitrust litigation is definitely having a moment right now. www.lighthouseglobal.com/blog/civil-a...
- It's pleasing to see business professors and lawyers acknowledge that Amazon is largely the result of mergers that could have been challenged if the controlling law had been enforced during its acquisition spree between 1998 & 2022. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- Vermont AAG Alexandra Spring has published a must-read article. Hearing forceful, justice-centered, and principled language from a state enforcer like her is not just inspiring; it sets a model for others. Just some of my favorite quotes are below. www.linkedin.com/posts/activi...
- It is essential to remember never to take the defense bar's position seriously on any issue. No matter how mundane the reform, they will always complain. The FTC's New HSR Rule is just the perfect example. Here is a blog post from some Steptoe attorneys. www.steptoe.com/en/news-publ...
