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Here below you find the most read articles on CompetitionFeed over the last week.

REUTERS

U.S. Justice Dept sets up anti-price collusion 'strike force'

The Justice Department said on Tuesday it had created a strike force that will identify and prosecute companies that fix prices or collude to push up the cost of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. government purchases. Read More.

abcNEWS

EU investigates French supermarkets in antitrust case

The European Commission is investigating whether two of France's largest chains of retail shops have infringed the bloc's competition rules by colluding on sales activities. Read More.

REUTERS

EU's Vestager says Google's antitrust proposal not helping shopping rivals

Alphabet unit Google’s proposal to create a level playing field for price comparison shopping rivals to stave off fresh fines has not led to more traffic for its competitors, Europe’s antitrust chief said on Thursday. Read More.

Bundeskartellamt

The French Autorité de la concurrence and the German Bundeskartellamt present their joint study on algorithms and competition

In their joint conceptual project – Algorithms and Competition – the Autorité de la concurrence and the Bundeskartellamt studied potential competitive risks that might be associated with algorithms. Read More.

FTC

FTC Commissioners Unanimously Find that Consummated Merger of Microprocessor Prosthetic Knee Companies Was Anticompetitive; Assets Must Be Unwound

The Federal Trade Commission issued an Opinion and Final Order in which the Commission upholds the Administrative Law Judge’s decision that the consummated acquisition of Freedom Innovations by Otto Bock HealthCare North America, Inc.—both top sellers of prosthetic knees equipped with microprocessors or MPKs—resulted in anticompetitive harm in the microprocessor prosthetic knee market, likely leading to higher prices and less innovation for amputee patients and prosthetic clinic customers. Read More.

Microeconomic Insight

Effects of vertical mergers in multichannel TV markets: evidence from regional sports programming

When producers of TV channels, such as Time Warner, and distributors of those channels, such as AT&T, are merged, what are the impacts on consumers, rival producers and rival distributors? Read More.

Review of Industrial Organization

Recent Developments at DG Competition: 2018/2019

Rossitza Kotzeva, David Kovo, Szabolcs Lorincz, Geza Sapi, Lluis Sauri, Tommaso Valletti
The Directorate General for Competition at the European Commission enforces competition law in the areas of antitrust, merger control, and state aids. Read More.

CEPR Discussion Paper

The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and the Distribution of Social Surplus

Yossi Spiegel
I show that in a broad range of oligopoly models where firms have (not necessarily identical) constant marginal cost, HHI is an increasing function of the ratio of producers' surplus and consumers' surplus and therefore reflects the division of surplus between firms' owners and consumers.Read More.

International Journal of Industrial Organization

Mergers in Medicare Part D: Assessing Market Power, Cost Efficiencies, and Bargaining Power

Anna Chorniya, Daniel Miller and Tilan Tang
We empirically examine horizontal mergers amongst Part D insurers with the aim of assessing how market power, cost efficiencies, and bargaining power affect premiums and coverage characteristics, including drug access and out-of-pocket (OOP) cost. Read More.

Working Paper

On the Consistency of the European Commission’s Remedies Practice

Benjamin Lörtscher and Frank P. Maier-Rigaud
The European Commission’s remedial practice displays important differences in the type of remedies accepted in merger versus antitrust cases. Read More.

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