Greetings-

We hope you are able to dial-in for these informative sessions being conducted live from the Summer Leadership Training Workshop. This experimental programming is being offered complimentary to members of the ABA Section of Antitrust Law. The sessions are not accredited for CLE.

On-line registration is available through August 5. Please select all sessions you plan to attend.

Reports to the Leadership

• William Cavanaugh Jr., Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Matters, U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, Washington, DC
• James A. Donahue III , NAAG Multistate Task Force, Harrisburg, PA
• The Honorable Douglas H. Ginsburg, U.S. Court of Appeals, Washington, DC
• Carolyn B. Lamm, ABA President, White & Case LLP, Washington, DC
• The Honorable Jon Leibowitz, Chairman, Federal Trade Commission, Washington, DC

Competition Law Policy, State Aid, and National Champions in a Time of Financial Distress

The United States has long organized its economy based on the principle that free markets characterized by robust competition will produce the greatest benefits to the nation’s citizens. Although the U.S. economic system has hardly been free of government regulation or other intervention, it nonetheless has largely preserved competition, protected through antitrust law, as its fundamental underpinning. Indeed, over the past 30 years, as the U.S. economy has matured and changed, our policy-makers have substantially deregulated several significant industries. And for nearly 20 years, developing nations around the globe have looked to the United States and other developed economies as models as they endeavor to transition to market-based economies.

Then came 2008. With global financial markets in turmoil and a substantial economic downturn, the superiority of free markets and the ability of competition to serve them is being challenged in the United States and even more so abroad. It is no overstatement to say that capitalism as we know it is under attack. Not surprisingly, heavier government regulation of markets is being touted as the solution. But will even well-intentioned regulation squelch innovation and entrepreneurship and ultimately reduce consumer welfare?

The Obama Administration and Congress will be making crucial decisions that will impact our nation’s economic system – and that of the world – for many years to come. Undoubtedly, U.S. policy-makers and others around the globe will engage in debates that often will come down to two important, interlocking questions: Does competition in the market provide the surest way to improve our citizens’ welfare? And what degree of government intervention in the market is necessary, helpful, or harmful to enhancing our citizens’ welfare?

Through the Section's May symposium, a host of experts explored whether competition should and will continue to serve as the foundation for economic policy and legislation. Members of the Section task force that facilitated this program will share highlights from the discussion and debate at the Symposium, including: 

• The history of competition and regulation in U.S. public policy and lessons learned;
• Lessons learned in the transition from extensive to lighter regulation, relying on competition to discipline market behavior in the airline and electricity generation industries;
• Whether it is the lack of regulation and oversight or misplaced government interventions in an otherwise competitive market that led to the financial crisis;
• The role that competition should play in the delivery of goods and services in health care; and
• The role of government’s “visible hand” in using taxpayer money to direct the economic system, from bailouts of individual companies to building national champions, drawing from the experiences of the European Union in regulating “state aid.”

Moderator:
James A. Wilson, Vorys Sater Seymour and Pease LLP, Columbus, OH

Speakers:
Edward D. Cavanagh, St. Johns University School of Law, Queens, NY
Robert S. Schlossberg, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, Washington, DC
Joshua H. Soven, U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, Washington, DC

Exclusive Preview to Fall Symposium on Designing Better Institutions for Deciding Antitrust Issues

On September 11, 2009, the Section and Loyola University Chicago School of Law will hold a Symposium exploring what institutional frameworks lead to the most effective decision making in antitrust cases; in particular, whether the US and other models for deciding antitrust issues could and should be revisited and, if so, how. Would such change need to be sweeping, or are there incremental modifications that would be worthwhile and constructive? This session will provide a one-hour special preview into what the Symposium panelists will be debating in September.

Moderator:
Melanie Aitken, Interim Commissior, Competition Bureau Canada, Ottawa, Canada

Speakers:
Thomas O. Barnett, Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, DC
Jonathan M. Jacobson, Wilson Sonsini et al, Washington, DC
The Honorable William E. Kovacic, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission, Washington, DC

• Session I Papers
• Session I Slides
• Session II Papers
• Session III Papers
• Dr. Alfred Kahn