Antitrust 2006 - The Supreme Court Speaks

During the current term, the Supreme Court decided three important antitrust cases — Volvo Trucks North America Inc. v. Reeder-Simco GMC Inc., Texaco Inc. v. Dagher, and Illinois Tool Works v. Independent Ink Inc.

The decisions address crucial antitrust matters ranging from price discrimination claims and pricing conduct to tying arrangements. These three, together with those cases that the Court did not choose to hear, reveal important insights into how the Court views antitrust law.

Listen as our authoritative panelists examine and analyze the three antitrust decisions from the current term, the implications of those decisions, and where the Supreme Court seems to be going.

Tyler A. Baker, Partner, Fenwick & West, Silicon Valley, chairs the firm’s Appellate Group and co-chairs its Antitrust and Unfair Competition Group. He served as law clerk to Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., and assisted in the drafting of the Sylvania decision, which abandoned the per se rule against vertical non-price distribution restrictions. As Special Assistant to William F. Baxter at the Antitrust Division, he was responsible for drafting the 1982 Merger Guidelines, which form the core of the analysis of mergers by the Antitrust Division and the FTC.

Andrew J. Pincus, Partner, Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, Washington, DC, specializes in briefing and arguing cases before the Supreme Court. Having participated in more than 100 such cases, he recently successfully argued Illinois Tool Works Inc. v. Independent Ink before the Court. He formerly served as General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Stephen F. Ross, Professor, University of Illinois College of Law, Champaign, is the author of the treatise Principles of Antitrust Law and has written numerous articles in the areas of general antitrust and competition policy in the U.S. and Canada. He served for several years as an attorney with the FTC and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He is a senior fellow of the American Antitrust Institute. Next month, Prof. Ross will join the new faculty at Pennsylvania State University's main campus in State College, where he will continue to teach and write about antitrust, sports law, and comparative Canadian/U.S. law.

The panelists address these and other key questions:

• What lessons can be learned from the Court’s decisions -- and what signals do they send the lower courts?
• What is the significance of the cases that the Court declined to hear -- and which issues seem most likely to be addressed in the next term?
• What do the trends in current antitrust litigation suggest for the future of antitrust law?

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