WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today announced that the third in a series of planned joint public hearings designed to examine the antitrust implications of single-firm conduct under the antitrust laws will take place on July 18, 2006, in Washington, D.C. As previously announced, these public hearings will examine whether and when specific types of single-firm conduct may violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act by harming competition and consumer welfare and when they are pro-competitive or benign. The hearings will continue through the year.
The session on July 18, which will be held at 601 New Jersey Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C., Conference Room C, and will go from 1:30 to 5:00 pm, will focus on the competitive implications associated with unilateral refusals to deal. As explained in the Federal Register notice announcing the hearings, such refusals occur when a firm chooses not to make a product or service available to another firm.
Information on the session’s participants is provided below:
--Stephen B. Donovan, Chief Counsel, Antitrust, International Paper.
--William J. Kolasky, Partner and Co-Chair of WilmerHale’s Antitrust and Competition Department, and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
--R. Hewitt Pate, Partner and Head of Hunton & Williams’s Global Competition Practice Group, and former Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.
--Robert Pitofsky, Joseph and Madeline Sheehy Professor in Antitrust and Trade Regulation Law, Georgetown University Law Center, and former Chairman, FTC.
--Steven C. Salop, Professor of Economics and Law, Georgetown University Law Center.
--Mark Whitener, Antitrust Counsel, General Electric Company, and Former Deputy Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition.
--Thomas F. Walton, Director, Economic Policy Analysis, General Motors Corporation.
The general public and press are invited to attend and view the proceedings. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Written comments from interested parties may be submitted to the Antitrust Division and the FTC.
Further information about the Section 2 hearings will be posted on the Antitrust Division’s Web site at http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/hearings/single_firm/sfchearing.htm and on the FTC’s Web site at http://www.ftc.gov/os/sectiontwohearings/index.htm. Individuals seeking more information on the hearings should contact Gail Kursh, Deputy Chief, Legal Policy Section, Antitrust Division, at singlefirmconduct@usdoj.gov, or Patricia Schultheiss, FTC, at section2hearings2@ftc.gov.
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