NEWS ARCHIVE

March 26, 2009
Sidak Testifies in ABA Mock Trial

Criterion Chairman and internationally-recognized economist J. Gregory Sidak testified today in the ABA 57th Antitrust Law Spring Meeting Mock Trial: Relevant Market in a Hypothetical Satellite Radio Merger.

Mr. Sidak has testified as an expert witness in scores of proceedings before courts, regulatory commissions, international commercial arbitration panels, and committees of Congress. Most recently, he submitted expert declarations to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of the Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio concerning the competitive consequences of the proposed merger of Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc. and XM Satellite Radio, Inc.

March 11, 2009
Sidak Offers Insight on Antitrust Matters in Merck Merger

Criterion Chairman and internationally-recognized economist J. Gregory Sidak was quoted today in Law360 discussing Merck & Co.'s plan to merge with Schering-Plough Corp. Please click here to read more.

February 26, 2009
Supreme Court Embraces Sidak Recommendation to Abolish Price Squeeze
 
The Supreme Court issued its decision Wednesday in Pacific Bell Telephone Company v. linkLine Communications, eliminating “price squeeze” as a viable antitrust theory under section 2 of the Sherman Act when a defendant has no antitrust duty to deal with the plaintiff at wholesale.
 
Criterion Chairman J. Gregory Sidak filed an amicus brief in the case with Judge Robert H. Bork, formerly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, on behalf of professors and scholars in law and economics in support of the petitioners (Pacific Bell, d/b/a AT&T California).
 
Mr. Sidak, a lawyer and economist who specializes in antitrust litigation, said today in Competition Law 360: “The Supreme Court’s decision makes clear that it is not possible to advance consumer welfare with an antitrust rule that punishes a firm for failing to ensure its competitors’ profitability.”

Mr. Sidak also noted:

The linkLine decision, though no surprise to antitrust specialists, is nonetheless important for four reasons:

• It sets the foundation for the Court to take a tie-in case and abolish whatever remains of the per se rule of illegality.
  
  
• It similarly sets the foundation for the Court to analyze the far more challenging case of bundled discounts.
  
  
• In this first antitrust decision in the Obama administration, we witness the conservatives and liberals on the Court splitting 5-4 on whether a losing plaintiff in an antitrust case should be tossed out of court entirely or have more bites at the apple on remand under different theories of liability.
  
  
• Fourth, on antitrust matters the Atlantic just got wider. The Supreme Court’s ruling directly conflicts with Europe’s recent prosecutions of price squeezes by Deutsche Telekom in Germany and Telefonica in Spain.

In addition, Mr. Sidak said: The Court, in a footnote, respectfully laid to rest the analysis of price squeezes in Judge Learned Hand’s Alcoa decision. Alcoa is effectively overruled, with no further explanation given by the Court than the statement that “developments in economic theory and antitrust jurisprudence since Alcoa’ make the ‘recent decisions in Trinko and Brooke Group more pertinent to the question before us.”

Contact Mr. Sidak at jgsidak@criterioneconomics.com.