How the “Other Half” Lives: FTC Nonmerger Antitrust Enforcement

• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X0404900301
• Date: 01 September 2004
• Author: James Langenfeld
• Published date: 01 September 2004
• Subject Matter: Article

The Antitrust Bulletin/Fall 2004

How the "other half" lives:

FTC nonmerger antitrust

enforcement

BYJAMESLANGENFELD*

457

INDEXED

There is a great deal written about the Federal Trade Commission's

(FTC) merger policy in legal, economic, and policy journals. IFTC

investigations of major mergers frequently make the front page of the

Wall Street

Journal,

and the business sections

of

the

New

York Times,

and USA Today. However, traditionally only about half

of

the budget

for

FTC's

antitrust enforcement has been for mergers. Some of these

non merger investigations

have

also

caught

attention,

such

as the

FTC's

recent challenges of agreements between branded and generic

companies

to

settle

patents,

but

many

of

the

FTC's

nonmerger

antitrust actions are relatively overlooked. This issue

of

The

Antitrust

Bulletin is entirely devoted to the FTC's non merger antitrust enforce-

ment-the

"other

half'-with

particular attention to its actions in the

last 10 years. These actions can and do have a major impact on busi-

ness practices in the U.S., and on consumers.

*Director, LECG Inc., Evanston, IL; Adjunct Professor,Loyola Uni-

versity Chicago Law School, Chicago, IL; former Director for Antitrust in

the Bureau of Economicsof the Federal Trade Commission.

AUTHOR'S

NOTE: I thank Robert Lande

for

his helpful comments. The views

are mine. and do not necessarily reflect the opinions

of

any

of

the above.

See, for example, David Scheffman, Malcolm Coate &Louis Silvia,

Twenty Years

of

Merger Guidelines Enforcement at the FIC: An Economic

Perspective, 71 ANlTrnUST L. J. 277

(2003),

and the other articles in that issue.

11) 2004 by federal Legal Publications. Inc.