Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Shelanski

J.D. Course 831 (cross-listed) | 2 credit hours

Mergers are the most active area of civil antitrust enforcement around the world. Each year, agencies like the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, the European Commission's Directorate General for Competition, and the Korean Fair Trade Commission review thousands of proposed transactions. Merger-related antitrust is correspondingly a very active area of private law practice and public policy. This course will examine several areas of merger law and policy, focusing on the United States but with significant attention to other major enforcement jurisdictions. It will cover the basic statutes and case law, the legal and economic framwork the agencies use to analyze mergers, and specific topics like mergers in high-technology industries and regulated markets. Special attention will be paid to the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, the first revision to the central principles of US merger enforcement since 1992, which the FTC and DOJ are expected to release just before the start of classes. The instructor is one of the drafters of these new Guidelines.

Prerequisite: Antitrust Law or Antitrust Economics and Law.