Recent Articles in Volume 26, Number 1 (2023)
Antitrust Accountability Delayed: State Antitrust Enforcement and Multidistrict Litigation
By Roger P. Alford – State Attorneys General play a crucial role in the enforcement of antitrust laws. Defendants have successfully delayed state enforcement proceedings by centralizing them with private lawsuits in multidistrict litigation. A new venue law has foreclosed that delay tactic, placing State Attorneys General on equal footing with federal antitrust enforcers in deciding where, when, and how to prosecute antitrust cases.
Hub-and-Spoke Conspiracies: Can Big Data and Pricing Algorithms Form the Rim?
By Bradley C. Weber – A hub-and-spoke conspiracy is a metaphor used to describe an antitrust cartel that includes a firm at one level of a supply chain—such as a buyer or supplier—who acts like the “hub” of a wheel. Vertical agreements up or down the supply chain act as the “spokes,” and a horizontal agreement among the spokes acts as the “rim” of the wheel. Courts have considered hub-and-spoke conspiracies for more than eighty years, and there is large body of case law that pertains to the evidence that is necessary for proving this type of antitrust conspiracy. [...]