Message from the Advisors

• Publication year: 2023
• Author: By Cheryl Lee Johnson and Geoffrey T. Holtz

MESSAGE FROM THE ADVISORS

By Cheryl Lee Johnson and Geoffrey T. Holtz¹

This Spring 2023 issue of the Antitrust and UCL Section's Competition Journal is inspired by and dedicated to the study of potential antitrust reforms directed by the California Legislature's Assembly Concurrent Resolution (ACR) No. 95.² ACR 95 draws on a body of studies and growing concerns about increasing market power concentration and the need for legislative action and reform. One of the sponsors of the bill, Assembly member Wick remarked that:

"the accumulation of power among California's tech giants is snowballing, and 20^th Century antitrust laws are ill equipped to take on these monopolies. As we emerge from the pandemic, we need to do all we can do to allow small businesses to compete, and make sure that such a great deal of power doesn't fall into so few hands. As our country's largest economy and hub of innovation, it's critical that California join Congress and other state governments in their efforts to revamp antitrust laws."

The California Law Revision Commission, created in 1953, is tasked with the continuing substantive review of California statutory and decisional law to make recommendations to the Legislature for needed reforms. Under ACR 95, the Legislature directed the California Law Revision Commission to study and report back on three antitrust topics:

1. Whether the law should be revised to outlaw monopolies by single companies as outlawed by Section 2 of the Sherman Act
2. Whether the law should be revised in the context of technology companies so that analysis of antitrust injury in that setting reflects competitive benefits such as innovation and permitting the personal freedom of individuals to start their own businesses and not solely whether such monopolies act to raise prices;

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3. Whether the law should be revised in any other fashion such as approvals for mergers and acquisitions and any limitation of existing statutory exemptions to the state's antitrust laws.

To assist in the performance of the ACR 95 task, the Commission assembled seven working groups with some of the leading academics and experts on antitrust issues and some of the states leading antitrust practitioners to study the topics.

In this issue of Competition, our contributors discuss some of the key considerations the Commission should address when assessing the topics assigned by the legislature. California is uniquely situated among the states to explore these issues. California's...