Legal News

Move Over Big Bankruptcy, Here Comes Big Antitrust

By Ashby Jones

Become a bankruptcy lawyer? Puhleeze; that’s so Early 2009. The new hot area all you rising 2Ls should be beefing up on come September — antitrust.

At least that’s one takeaway from a pair of stories out today on trustbusting and Silicon Valley. According to this WSJ story, Silicon Valley companies are bracing for a tough new phase of antitrust scrutiny, responding to signs of heavier enforcement by the Obama administration and continued pressure from abroad.

Antitrust lawyers in private practice expect to get more business. “During the Bush administration nobody was interested in hearing about that,” said Gary Reback, a lawyer at Carr & Ferrell who has been involved in high-profile, high-technology antitrust cases and recently wrote a book on the subject. “As we go forward, we’ll hear a lot more about it.”

The NYT story, meanwhile, focuses on Google, the company for whom the “stakes appear to be the highest.”

The new focus, legal experts say, is likely to be on networks. Internet search and search advertising, like personal computer operating software, is one example, said Herbert Hovenkamp, an antitrust expert at the University of Iowa law school. "Google is a dominant network, as is Microsoft," said Hovenkamp to the NYT. "Networks become competitive only if everyone has the same chance."

Google’s gearing up. Its lobbyists and executives since March have met with about 40 groups, including lawmakers, regulators and advertising agencies, to argue that its business practices don’t reduce competition. A Google spokesman said the effort is a response to Google’s “size and success” not to the new administration.

That said, being large, successful and ambitious is not an antitrust violation. "You've got to be big, and you have to be bad," said Howard University’s Andrew I. Gavil to the NYT. "You have to be both."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 18, 2009 (boomark / email).