Commissioner Chopra comes out swinging. The FTC has pursued "a pro-merger policy" on pharma. The agency has chosen to "devote more resources to investigate small-time scams than to pharmaceutical megamergers."
"Commissioners have deprived our merger investigations of staff that understand the on-the-ground realities of how the capital markets incentivize anticompetitive mergers and conduct in the industry."
He recommends the FTC commissioners hold meetings before any proposed remedy is negotiated by staff and require the Bureau of Competition obtain a commission vote before closing or granting an ET to a large deal.
In a footnote, he says that staff in 2018 gave "unconditional clearance to Takeda’s $62 billion takeover of Shire without seeking a Commission vote"
He recommends expanding the staff in the FTC's Bureau of Economics to include financial analysts (most staff in BE are economists who specialize in industrial organization)
He also says the FTC should publish a detailed analysis on any settlements, disclose the data they rely on to justify a settlement and provide more information on any divestitures. (As someone who often has to figure this stuff out, I wholeheartedly back this one)
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The merger bill is up: @SenAmyKlobuchar says merger fees haven't been changed since 2001. This will increase fees on the biggest mergers and decrease them on the smaller mergers.
. @HawleyMO says he will support the bill though he has concerns about the @FTC and @JusticeATR whose performance is "lacking." "Google is a glaring, glaring example"
He says state AGs have done the most important work in antitrust recently "I wonder if we ought not to be directing more resources to state attorneys general."
Schmalensee says he has testified in court before, most notably as Microsoft's expert in US v Microsoft. He has consulted for @FTC Bureau of Economics and @JusticeATR. He was member of CEA during George H.W. Bush admin from 1989 to 1991
Stanford's Susan Athey is back on the stand for #epicvapple this AM being cross examined by Apple's Karen Dunn.
Dunn is asking Athey a bunch of questions about Steam's apps, like Steam Chat, a messenger app. techcrunch.com/2019/05/21/val…
Athey says she's used Steam but not Steam Chat or Steam Link, an app that lets you stream Steam from your PC to your mobile device or TV en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_Link
Susan Athey of Stanford is up now, being questioned by Epic's Yonatan Even. She's former top economist at Microsoft and currently advises Expedia, Turo and Rover
Athey is explaining "switching costs," the costs a user bears when she leaves one platform for another. The average consumer has more than 100 apps and will have to figure out if each is available. Apple doesn't allow developers to say if they offer an app on other platforms.
If it's a paid app, the consumer would have to pay to download it again when they switch. And for some apps, transferring data between iPhone and a new platform isn't possible.