The "killer acquisition" hypothesis dominates debate on technology mergers, asking whether large firms buy startups to eliminate them. But the more revealing question is what acquirers keep. I report the findings of a new working paper that applies survival analysis to 364 GAFAM acquisitions between 2014 and 2024, tracking how long each target maintained an...Read More
The abuse of economic dependence has attracted renewed attention, largely as a result of the growing policy focus on fairness in digital markets. Rules originally designed to address bargaining-power imbalances in traditional commercial relationships are increasingly being recast as instruments of digital-market enforcement. Their scope and antitrust character, however, remain uncertain. This uncertainty reflects a...Read More
This paper assesses the European Commission’s draft Merger Guidelines against the treatment of efficiencies, the failing firm defence, and the counterfactual in the 2004 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the 2008 Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines. My central claim is that the draft guidelines represent a welcome but incomplete correction. They rightly recognise that merger control can no...Read More
I consider legal decisions resulting in the end of the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality regulation. There is evidence that net neutrality regulation has diminished incentives to invest in internet access and increased transaction costs in the market for access. As a result, net neutrality regulation may have constrained e-commerce. I conclude that ending net...Read More
There were a number of significant decisions from April through June 2026, including: (1) the Eastern District of California’s preliminary injunction in In re Nexstar-Tegna Merger Litigation, requiring hold-separate relief notwithstanding prior DOJ and FCC approval of the acquisition and raising important questions about state parens patriae standing and the scope of injunctive relief; (2)...Read More
