Curriculum Guide · Curriculum

Antitrust deals with the area of law concerned with maintaining competition in private markets. Antitrust law courses study the law and economics of monopolies and cartels, including the potential benefits and harms of these market structures. Antitrust evaluates business conduct that may lead to monopoly and cartel outcomes, and the statutes, case law and other governmental policies that attempt to maintain competitive market structures and competitive conduct.

The study of antitrust law at the Law Center begins with the basic Antitrust Law course. Two variants of this course are offered, a three-credit Antitrust Law course and a four-credit Antitrust Economics and Law course. The four-credit course is expanded to permit additional analysis of the economic aspects of the business conduct and law, and it also places greater emphasis on economic materials and an economic approach to antitrust. (Students may only take one of the variants.) In addition to the basic course, a variety of advanced antitrust courses and seminars are offered. Some of these advanced courses delve more deeply into narrow areas such as international competition, selected antitrust issues such as mergers and acquisitions, or particular economic sectors such as telecommunications, sports and health care. The Advanced Antitrust Economics and Law Seminar analyzes cutting edge antitrust issues from an economics perspective, and students write potentially publishable papers on such topics. Professor Pitofsky’s Antitrust and Intellectual Property Seminar examines the unresolved issues at the intersection of the “New Economy” and conventional antitrust principles.

Because of its focus on the mechanics and role of competition in a modern free market economy, the issues studied in antitrust law are useful for understanding a wide array of business conduct. In addition to antitrust, many other courses in this course cluster analyze the law and economics of economic regulation of free markets and competition. Pricing and other aspects of competition in certain markets, especially those with monopoly structures such as local telephone service, are regulated more directly and intensively by administrative agencies rather than simply by general antitrust rules. In addition, there is an important nexus between antitrust and intellectual property. Intellectual property law awards limited monopolies to reward innovators and intellectual property law and antitrust law sometimes may be in apparent conflict. The analysis of economic incentives and contractual relations in Economic Reasoning and the Law also has important applications to antitrust.

Full-time Faculty:
Barry E. Carter
Robert Pitofsky
Steven C. Salop
Howard Shelanski