Antitrust Policy and Vertical Restraints
May 12, 2005
Antitrust has focused heavily on issues of "vertical restraints"—everything from, for example, giving distributors exclusive sales territories to tying access of one product to the purchase of another. A few decades ago, legal opinion almost uniformly viewed these vertical restraints as anticompetitive. Today, however, both the courts and antitrust scholars agree that the benefits to consumers from greater efficiency can outweigh the potential to reduce competition. This event will bring together key scholars to discuss the economics and law of vertical restraints, and to suggest ways to make policies toward restraints more rational and consistent.


