Analysis Group Authors Win Three 2024 Concurrences Antitrust Writing Awards
April 10, 2024
Analysis Group is honored to have seven of its competition experts named as 2024 Concurrences Antitrust Writing Award winners in three categories.
Readers’ Choice Award: Best General Antitrust Business Article
In “OECD Gender Inclusive Toolkit May Inform Competition Policy,” Managing Principals Jee-Yeon Lehmann and Lisa Pinheiro and Vice President Marissa Ginn discuss gender considerations in competition policy in response to the release of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Gender Inclusive Competition Toolkit.
As society focuses on gender equity and other social justice issues, competition authorities around the world are also taking notice, including in the US, Canada, and other OECD member nations. From concerns about potential biases in algorithmic decision making to factors that may contribute to gender disparities in the labor market, competition authorities are increasingly debating the role of competition policy in addressing gender equity issues.
The article describes the OECD’s framework for how gender-based considerations could be investigated in the early stages of market definition and competitive effects analysis, including how a gender lens could be applied to data collection efforts when relevant. Using publicly available data from a large online retailer, the authors also provide an illustrative example of how such a framework could be applied to the early stages of a merger investigation. In their conclusion, the authors note that, regardless of whether gender should be considered in the context of competition policy, “the desire for completeness and thoroughness [of related analyses] should be balanced with considerations of efficiency and an understanding of the burdens to the relevant parties, particularly in light of competition authorities’ resource constraints.” The article was originally published in Law360.
Readers’ Choice Award: Best Mergers Academic Article
In “Economic Analysis of Merger Remedies,” CEO and Chairman Martha S. Samuelson and Vice Presidents Ishita Rajani and Alex Robinson address potential anticompetitive effects of mergers and explore the evolving merger remedies landscape from the perspectives of practitioners and regulators. They examine key economic issues considered by antitrust agencies in the selection and design of merger remedies for horizontal and vertical mergers.
The authors discuss recent developments in the design of remedies, including the role of data-related remedies and the trend of litigating the fix, as agencies balance protecting pre-merger competition and a merger’s efficiency-enhancing potential while avoiding unnecessary restraints on competition. They also provide updated case studies to illustrate applications of merger remedies in an environment of evolving industry structures, competitive dynamics, and antitrust considerations. Their article was originally published in the fifth edition of Global Competition Review’s Merger Remedies Guide.
Readers’ Choice Award: Best General Economics Business Article
In “The Proper Measure of Profits for Assessing Market Power,” Managing Principal David Hutchings and external coauthors Michael Cragg, Patrick Holder, and Bin Zhou describe how to calculate economic profit and rates of return using firm financial data, and they set forth some of the key economic issues when considering whether a given level of profit may be reflective of the presence and exercise of market power. The authors also make a number of recommendations for how to properly use accounting data to assess a firm’s market power, in particular when the firm might have significant intangible assets. The article was originally published in the American Bar Association’s Antitrust Magazine.
The Concurrences awards, a joint initiative between the magazine and the George Washington University Competition Law Center, recognize compelling scholarship in the areas of antitrust and competitive markets. The three-month evaluation process for the 2024 Antitrust Writing Awards involved 60 international antitrust experts who reviewed 600 submissions.