Undoubtedly you've seen television commercials by a
well-known insurance company where one character turns to another
and says: "you can save 15% or more in 15 minutes." The
other character then replies: "every one knows that, but did
you know...." In antitrust, everyone knows that
horizontal price-fixing agreements are per se illegal, while
oligopolistic pricing is not. But did you know that there is an
argument against this dichotomy? In a recent and thought-provoking
book entitled Competition Policy and Price Fixing
(Princeton University Press 2013), Harvard professor Louis Kaplow
argues that the rule makes little or no sense, and instead urges
that the core inquiry of antitrust enforcement be jettisoned in
favor of the application of economic tests. Swimming somewhat
against ABTL Report precedent, this column is a brief review of
Professor Kaplow's book.
