The Apple iTunes Store is offering a new service, called iTunes U. There are lectures, recorded at various universities, inlcuding Duke, UC Berkeley, MIT, Penn, Yale and several others. There are lectures on economics, for example, or on Law & Society (I picked up a couple of lectures on Max Weber). The general slant in law-related offerings seems to be broader topics with political and historical implications. But there are several topics that are technical enough. It pays to spend some time browsing, since it isn’t easy to access the content by topic. Also, and I hope that this can be fixed, the lectures are listed alphabetically and it is not always easy to tell the order in which the lectures were given. I am listening to a course on economics by Prof. Gordon Rausser (UC Berkeley) at the gym these days. There are also links to course webpages and course materials. And the lectures are all free.

The sound files of the Oyez Project are also available through iTunes—they let you listen to Supreme Court oral arguments. The 2006 term is up, and older recordings, sorted by subject matter are added regularly.

Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw may be facing some disruptive price competition. Along with a new Creative Commons license, an archive of federal case law will be released into the public domain:

CC-0 is a brand new Creative Commons license, whose official launch is expected in December, that signals the absence of any copyright or related rights associated with a work. The creation of CC-0 is heralded by the release into the public domain of a free archive of federal case law, including all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme Court decisions since 1754, through Carl Malamud’s Public.Resource.Org.

HT to O’Reilly Radar, where you can find the full story.

As Securities Law360 reports, Wal-Mart is putting a moratorium on legal fees:

On Thursday, the retail behemoth’s associate general counsel Miguel Rivera Sr. issued a memo to the company’s outside counsel network bemoaning the meteoric rise of starting salaries for first-year associates — currently at $160,000 for most top New York firms — and the impact he said it had on the firms’ billing rates. He cited the recent break with the $1,000-per-hour barrier for senior partners. “Until further notice, we will only consider reasonable, individual requests for rate increases for those attorneys in your firm who are performing at an exceptional level and whose experience and knowledge is adding substantial value toward meeting Wal-Mart’s legal objectives,” Rivera wrote.

I used to not believe alarmist stories about Wal-Mart’s terrifying buying power. But I might have to reconsider…

… said NBC Universal’s CEO, Jeff Zucker. As the Financial Times reports,

Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal’s chief executive, yesterday warned that Apple’s iTunes digital media store was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to sell their content online at profitable rates, and he urged them to take a stand. “We know that Apple has destroyed the music business – in terms of pricing – and if we don’t take control, they’ll do the same thing on the video side,” Mr Zucker said at a breakfast hosted by Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Communications.

The article also points out that

Mr Zucker also suggested Apple had rejected requests to share revenue from its sales of iPod devices, which are far more profitable than the digital media store. During his remarks, Mr Zucker emphasised that conventional media companies were struggling to develop economic models for new forms of digital distribution, and trying to ensure that a dollar of traditional revenue was not reduced to mere pennies in an online world.

It will be interesting to see how the digital distribution will play out, and to what extent the conventional media companies will be able to adapt. It is easy to see that antitrust laws may be implicated along the way as the industry transitions.

The New York Antitrust Bureau is looking to fill its Director of Economics position, as well as an attorney staff-level position. Here are the postings:

Director of Economics at the New York State Office of the Attorney General (Position located in New York City): The New York State Attorney General’s Office is interviewing to hire a Director of Economics to assist in investigations, litigation and the development of policy on behalf of the State’s citizens. The position offers a unique opportunity to work on applied economic projects with an elite group of law enforcement and policy practitioners at one of the most creative and dynamic public agencies in the country. In view of the Antitrust Bureau’s ongoing need for economic advice, the position is part of that Bureau. However, the Director of Economics will work on projects with other parts of the Attorney General’s Office. An ideal candidate will have a Ph.D in economics or finance, and experience using one or more statistical applications. Yearly compensation is $85,000 to $100,000, commensurate with qualifications and experience. Please submit a cover letter including your resume/cv and references to jay.himes@oag.state.ny.us, or contact New York State Office of the Attorney General, Division of Legal Recruiting, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.

Antitrust Bureau Attorney Position at the New York State Office of the Attorney General (Position located in New York City): 2+ years antitrust/litigation experience. Applicants should have strong investigative, writing, analytic, research and communications skills, as well as experience in antitrust or other complex itigation. Commitment to public service is essential. The New ork Antitrust Bureau handles criminal and civil matters involving price-fixing, bid-rigging, and vertical restraints of trade, monopolization, and mergers under both federal and New York state law. The Bureau works closely with other State antitrust enforcers on matters of national impact, and with the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. Bureau members can be expected to participate in all phases of antitrust matters, from investigation to case filing, discovery, motion practice, trial and appeal, and settlement. Salary commensurate with qualifications and xperience. Please submit a cover letter including your resume/cv nd references to jay.himes@oag.state.ny.us, or contact New York State Office of the Attorney General, Division of Legal Recruiting, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.

The beer rule applies—if you take the job, you owe us a beer.

The New York Times reports that Microsoft is playing it close to the chest.

Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, visiting France to promote innovation, declined to say whether the software maker would contest the ruling to its last level, the European Court of Justice. … Asked by The Associated Press whether Microsoft would appeal, he refused to say. He also declined all comment after his first appointment with Prime Minister Francois Fillon. ”Innovation is a topic that is fraught with many stereotypes and misunderstandings,” he told members of France’s National Assembly. ”It’s only through sustained investment and innovation that companies and countries will become leading engines of economic growth and success,” he said. ”Innovation is about generating ideas and fully exploiting them to drive value or profit.”

The antitrust laws, both in the US and the EU, of course have something to say about “fully exploiting” ideas, at least for those who have a monopoly power.

The next chapter in the never-ending Qualcomm antitrust saga. The New York Times reports:

Qualcomm, the world’s second-largest chipmaker for cell phones, may have violated EU competition rules by refusing to share licensing terms for its mobile phone technology, EU spokesman Jonathan Todd told reporters. EU investigators had upgraded their probe to ”priority status” to complete the investigation as soon as possible, he said. … Competitors say Qualcomm’s royalty fees for next-generation mobile phone chips were too high and thus broke agreements among patent holders to keep costs at a reasonable level. ”They claim that Qualcomm is not making the necessary intellectual property rights available … on conditions that are fair, reasonable and non discriminatory,” Todd said. …

Steve Altman, president of Qualcomm Inc., said that “the complaints were being used by Qualcomm rivals ’stifle the competition’ his company brings to market.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee has passed a bill that would end the antitrust exemption for railroads. As yahoo.com reports:

The Railroad Antitrust Enforcement Act of 2007, cosponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), would:

1. Repeal the railroad antitrust exemptions;
2. Permit the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission(FTC) to review mergers under antitrust law; and
3. Allow state Attorneys General and other private parties to sue for treble damages and sue for court orders to halt anticompetitive conduct, both of which are not currently allowable under federal law. …

A companion House bill (H.R. 1650) is currently pending in the House Judiciary Committee.

But what about McCarran-Ferguson? Where is Trent Lott these days?

(HT to Charles Hoffman.)

The UK’s Office of Fair Trading has issued a statement of objections, which charges that several UK supermarket operators and dairy processors have been keeping the price of milk and dairy products artificially high. This SO was issued to Asda, Morrisons, Safeway, Sainsbury and Tesco, as well as dairy processors Arla, Dairy Crest, Lactalis McLelland, The Cheese Company and Wiseman.

The provisional finding is that these supermarkets and dairy processors engaged in fixing the retail prices for milk, butter and cheese, in breach of the Competition Act, by sharing highly commercially sensitive information, including details of the levels of price increases, over a two year period (2002 and 2003).

The press release is here.

This isn’t about deadweight loss, nor welfare transfers from buyers to sellers. This is about an object lesson in what happens when a company is sufficiently close to monopoly to be able to stop competing vigorously. Microsoft must have had no need to actually advertise to sell its products, for quite some time. We now discover that it has been in a position to suck welfare out of buyers as long ago as June 1991. At least that is the only explanation we here at the Antitrust Review can find for this “promotional video” that surely caused viewers to want to run and hide, rather than upgrade to MS Dos 5.

Watch at your own risk.

HT to /.

As the Global Competition Review ($) reports, China has adopted a new competition law. The law will be effective in a year (August 1, 2008).

“It definitely has a full complement of antitrust bells and whistles,” says Abbott B “Tad” Lipsky of Latham & Watkins LLP. “As far as its substantive standards are concerned, it’s well within hailing distance of international standards and, beside a couple of wrinkles, would be more or less recognisable to a US or EU competition lawyer.”

The WSJ has background, and raises some questions about the new law:

Some see it as a tool that can aid domestic and government-owned companies and protect them from inroads by foreign multinationals. Accelerating inflation this year has also led to renewed official interest in controlling price increases by manufacturers.

Yet other local proponents see the antitrust code as a way to bring more competition and openness to the Chinese economy, many parts of which are still dominated by the state.  . . .

Whether the law lives up to that promise depends less on the language that is finally approved by legislators and more on the priorities of future Chinese administrations. And in the last couple years, foreign investment in China has come under increasing political scrutiny, as leaders worry less about attracting money from abroad and more about supporting emerging local companies.

Here is the AAI’s concern:

Intel is clearly a monopolist in the microprocessor manufacturing industry, which for practical purposes is a global duopoly whose control over an essential ingredient for high technology makes it a critical focal point for competition policy. There seems to be no compelling evidence that this industry is a natural monopoly, so it becomes especially important to be vigilant against strategies by the dominant firm that might eliminate or cripple its only rival’s ability to gain substantial market share as a result of its hard-won and pro-competitive innovations and efficiency.

The specific concern is Intel’s rebate program, which has been subject to investigations in the EU,  Korea and Japan (and current litigation in the USA), and which allegedly discourages OEMs from switching to AMD chips. And here is what the FTC should do about it:

The U.S. government –especially the FTC—should reclaim its traditional role as the leading antitrust enforcer, especially when it is two U.S. corporations that are involved and the rest of the industrialized world is so concerned.

The entire the letter to Chairman Majoras is here.

The European Commission has confirmed that a Statement of Objections was issued to Rambus on July 30. The claim is for an abuse of a dominant position by “claiming unreasonable royalties for the use of certain patents” for DRAM chips. From the press release:

DRAMs have been standardised by an industry-wide US based standard setting organisation – JEDEC. Rambus owns and is asserting patents which it claims cover the technology included in these JEDEC standards. Therefore, every manufacturer wishing to produce synchronous DRAM chips or chipsets consequently must either acquire a licence from Rambus or litigate its asserted patent rights. The SO outlines the Commission’s preliminary view that Rambus engaged in intentional deceptive conduct in the context of the standard-setting process, for example by not disclosing the existence of the patents which it later claimed were relevant to the adopted standard. This type of behaviour is known as a “patent ambush”. Against this background, the Commission provisionally considers that Rambus breached the EC Treaty’s rules on abuse of a dominant market position (Article 82) by subsequently claiming unreasonable royalties for the use of those relevant patents. The Commission’s preliminary view is that without its “patent ambush”, Rambus would not have been able to charge the royalty rates it currently does. This is the first time that the Commission is dealing with a “patent ambush” under EC antitrust law, but the approach reflects well-established general case-law under Article 82 of the Treaty.

The European Commission’s SO follows the FTC’s administrative proceedings against Rambus. In June 2002, the FTC had charged Rambus with violating federal antitrust laws by deliberately engaging in a pattern of anticompetitive acts to deceive an industry standard-setting organization (JEDEC). The FTC had issued a final opinion and order back in February, in which it sets maximum royalties that Rambus may charge:

[T]he Commission has previously declared, and we agree, that ‘where the circumstances justify such relief, the Commission has the authority to require royalty-free licensing.’ . . . We conclude, however, that Complaint Counsel have not satisfied their burden of demonstrating that a royalty-free remedy is necessary to restore the competition that would have existed in the ‘but for’ world – i.e., that absent Rambus’s deception, JEDEC would not have standardized Rambus technologies, thus leaving Rambus with no royalties. . . .We have examined the record for the proof that the courts have found necessary to impose royalty-free licensing, but do not find it. We therefore are left with the task of determining the maximum reasonable royalty rate that Rambus may charge those practicing the SDRAM and DDR-SDRAM standards. Royalty rates unquestionably are better set in the marketplace, but Rambus’s deceptive conduct has made that impossible. Although we do not relish imposing a compulsory licensing remedy, the facts presented make that relief appropriate and indeed necessary to restore competition.

All FTC documents relating to the Rambus matter, including Rambus’s motion to reconsider, an interesting amicus curae brief, and the FTC’s order and opinion on that motion, can be found here.

The D.C. Circuit last night denied the stay pending appeal, following the district court’s denial of the a preliminary injunction against the Whole Foods/Wild Oats merger. Here is the order. The FTC, according to the DC Circuit’s per curiam order, failed to show that the district court abused its discretion or made clearly erroneous findings of fact or errors of law. The district court had rejected the agency’s argument that there is a market for [products sold in] “premium natural and organic supermarkets.” This leaves John Mackey and Whole Foods free to scramble the eggs.

Congratulations to Michael Katz, former DoJ chief economist, who has just joined Competition Policy Associates (COMPASS). From the announcement:

Dr. Katz is a Professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He previously served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economic Analysis at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the Chief Economist at the Federal Communications Commission. Dr. Katz has served as an economic expert in a wide range of high-profile litigation and regulatory proceedings, with a focus in the telecommunications and electronic payments industries. For example, Dr. Katz served as the primary expert for the U.S. Department of Justice in United States v. Visa USA, Inc. With the addition of Dr. Katz, the COMPASS team of experts now includes five former chief economists at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division: Dr. Katz, Bobby Willig, Janusz Ordover, Dan Rubinfeld, and Richard Gilbert.