Author: Steven Madoff If you are an in-house counsel, your company colleagues may, unfortunately, think of your group as the “business interference” department. But, if you are lucky, an opportunity to create a profit-center for your company may present itself. You just have to recognize it. Early in my entertainment-law…
The Antitrust Attorney Blog
Invited to Your First Trade Association Meeting? Here Are Important Antitrust Tips
Author: Steven Cernak So you have been invited to your first trade association meeting. Sounds like fun, right? You get a chance to mix and mingle with others in your industry, maybe swap notes with your counterparts at competitors who face the same pressures you do. What could go wrong?…
The Republican-Democrat Duopoly: Harvard Business Review Authors Ask for More Competition in Politics
Author: Jarod Bona As antitrust attorneys, we advocate for competition in product and service markets. The US Supreme Court recognizes that “the heart of our national economy long as been faith in the value of competition,” and we agree. But competition matters elsewhere too. We certainly see it in sports.…
Antitrust in Distribution and Franchising from Bona Law’s Steve Cernak Now Available
Contrary to the belief of many of today’s businesspeople, antitrust law’s coverage of distribution did not start with Amazon or even the Internet. For decades, manufacturers have sold their products to resellers of all types to increase the distribution of their products. Manufacturers always have been interested in how their…
California Rarely Enforces Non-Compete Clauses Against its Residents and Sometimes Won’t Even Enforce Out-of-State Forum Selection and Choice-of-Law Clauses
Author: Luis Blanquez California’s long-standing public policy in favor of employee mobility over an employer’s ability to prohibit any worker from going to work for a competitor is included in California Business & Professions Code Section 16600. So how do employers outside of California try to get around this powerful…
Should Venture-Capital Backed Or Foreign-Funded Companies Worry About Predatory-Pricing-Antitrust Claims?
Author: Jarod Bona The US Supreme Court said in 1986 that “[T]here is a consensus among commentators that predatory pricing schemes are rarely tried, and even more rarely successful.” This was the famous Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp. case that is known mostly for stating that to…
What is Great Legal Writing?
Author: Jarod Bona Great lawyers must write well. But what does that mean? I could give you a list of what you should or shouldn’t do as a legal writer. I think that you might find such an article useful regardless of your skill level because the best writers always…
Predatory Pricing: Rarely, But Not Never, Successful under US Antitrust Laws
Author: Steven Cernak Your much larger competitor sells the same products as you do but at a much lower price, so low you think that it must be losing money on each sale. Can such “predatory pricing” ever violate the antitrust laws? It is a very difficult monopolization case to…
An Antitrust Fight Between the Talent Agencies and the Writers About How Hollywood Does Business
Author: Jarod Bona As an antitrust lawyer, I find it interesting to see the inner workings of different types of markets—how people and companies buy and sell things. And the entertainment industry is one of the more fascinating ones. The entertainment industry includes an interesting mix of concentrated players at…
Certificate-of-Need Laws, Evil Trolls, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune
Author: Jarod Bona We do our best to describe antitrust and other legal issues as straightforwardly as possible here. We tend to speak directly and avoid the guarded language that you often see from lawyers elsewhere (a little secret: most big-firm attorneys are afraid of getting in trouble in one…