Penn Carey Law Antitrust Association (PCLAA)

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan recently joined University of Pennsylvania students, faculty, and staff at Penn Carey Law for a conversation with student moderator, Melissa B. L’25, Penn Carey Law Antitrust Association (PCLAA) President. Khan, who has served as the Chair of the FTC since 2021, shared insights on the current state of the FTC’s consumer protection initiatives and antitrust enforcement, while offering students advice about law school and beyond. The event was hosted by the Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition and the PLAA. It was co-sponsored by the Penn Program on Regulation and the Institute for Law & Economics. Sophia Z. Lee, Dean and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law at Penn Carey Law, and Christopher S. Yoo, Imosagie Professor of Law and Technology and Founding Director of the Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition, delivered welcoming remarks. Read more at CBS News: https://lnkd.in/es97ZDUF

Last week, we sent our first-ever law student delegation to the American Bar Association Antitrust Law Section Spring Meeting in Washington DC. PCLAA members Mariana Fontoura da Rosa, Víctor M. Aldasoro Favela, Aaron Goodman and Mike Holtz attended panel discussions on AI regulation, global collaboration, merger review and other key trends in antitrust. They also had opportunities to meet with attorneys from law firms along with the DOJ, FTC, and antitrust authorities around the world. We look forward to returning for Spring Meeting 2025 and engaging more with the ABA in the year ahead!

Yesterday, PCLAA had the pleasure of hosting a lunch discussion with Andrew Finch and Thomas Rucker from the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP antitrust team, in which they highlighted their practice, industry trends, insights into a day in the life as an antitrust attorney, and their recent representation of Spirit Airlines in its proposed sale to JetBlue Airways Corporation. We would like to thank Andrew and Tommy for joining us at the law school, as well as all Penn students who attended!

Yesterday, the PCLAA, CTIC, Penn Program on Regulation and the Institute for Law & Economics had the pleasure to host FTC Chair Lina Khan for a fireside chat with PCLAA’s president Melissa Bredbenner. Chair Lina Khan shared with Penn Law Students’ her thoughts about the FTC’s current antitrust and consumer protection agenda, recent cases, and topics of heightened interest including AI and the impact of private equity acquisitions. It was a remarkable day for the Penn Carey Law Community and we would like to thank everyone who attended and supported this event, and mainly FTC Chair Lina Khan, for joining us!

Last week we had the pleasure to hear from the antitrust team at Freshfields about their global antitrust practice and the many successful antitrust cases the team has worked on. We would like to thank the Freshfield’s team, especially Justin Stewart-Teitelbaum, Angela Landry and Emily Abbott, as well as all Penn students who attended. It was a very productive conversation! We look forward to hosting the team again.

On February 16, we welcomed panelists from across the world to join us at the PCLAA Symposium, titled “Merger Enforcement in an Age of Heightened Antitrust Scrutiny: International, Federal, and State Perspectives.” We were delighted to hear from academics, enforcers, and practitioners of diverse jurisdictions and share in conversation with individuals who have different beliefs about what merger enforcement should try to achieve. Our panel on international perspectives, which featured Eduardo Frade, Andrea Marvan Saltiel, Giovanna Massarotto, and Salil Mehra, gave us a great overview of merger enforcement in numerous jurisdictions across the world, and how different jurisdiction’s policies influence and interact with one another. Our second panel, which featured Sarah Allen, Elizabeth Arthur, Emily Myers, Rahul Rao, and Tracy Wertz, highlighted the substantive but perhaps overlooked role of the states in merger enforcement. With knowledge of local markets, states are well-equipped to both lead merger challenges and cooperate with federal regulators. Our final panel, which featured Jonathan Baker, Jeremy Calsyn, David Lawrence, Meghan Rissmiller, and Fiona Schaeffer, focused on the 2023 Merger Guidelines and proposed changes to HSR reporting. This panel showcased the close relationship between the public and private sector and illustrated how movement in one deeply impacts the other. Merger enforcement policy has to consider a range of perspectives, and our conversations highlighted the benefits and challenges of doing so, particularly in an increasingly globalized society. In the end, those challenges are what make antitrust exciting to study and rewarding to practice. We thank you all for coming and sincerely hope you join us next year!

Our Symposium, “Merger Enforcement in an Age of Heightened Antitrust Scrutiny: International, Federal, and State Perspectives,” held on February 16, featured one of the top antitrust enforcers in the United States, who happens to be our very own Penn Carey Law alumni, Doha Mekki, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. PDAAG Mekki was joined in conversation with New York Times reporter Lauren Hirsch. PDAAG Mekki and Lauren discussed some of the major investigations that PDAAG Mekki has been involved with at the DOJ, topics of increasing focus, such as labor, and the Antitrust Division’s takeaways from recent losses. PDAAG Mekki also discussed what it’s like to practice antitrust law under different presidential administrations and how she has navigated changing policy as a DOJ official. The conversation between PDAAG Mekki and Lauren provided a useful glimpse into what it's like to be an enforcer at such an important juncture in antitrust law. PCLAA is grateful to have had PDAAG Mekki and Lauren to help deepen the conversation about merger enforcement. Thank you both! 

On February 16, we hosted our much anticipated PCLAA Symposium, “Merger Enforcement in an Age of Heightened Antitrust Scrutiny: International, Federal, and State Perspectives.” We were honored to welcome our keynote speaker, Professor Tim Wu, to Philadelphia. Tim Wu, hailed as the former architect of President Biden’s antitrust policy, is a renowned scholar. His 2018 book, “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age” encourages using lessons from the Progressive Era to combat growing inequality today using antitrust law. Professor Wu’s keynote led attendees through the history of schools of thought in antitrust law, beginning in the early 1900s through the neobrandeisian movement of today. We’ve even been told that the timeline he presented, that we’ve shared below, may make its way onto mugs and tea towels—so keep an eye out! The discussion with Professor Wu was deeply enlightening and we are grateful that he shared his expertise with our attendees. Thank you so much, Professor Wu!

We would like to thank our panelists and everyone who attended our Symposium last Friday, either virtually or in person. We were thrilled to welcome so many people to Philadelphia and we thought it was a great success! Attendees learned about the historical foundations of various schools of thought in antitrust law, numerous jurisdictions' approaches to competition law and how they may be influenced by one another, the unique role of enforcing the antitrust laws under multiple presidential administrations, the states' roles in merger enforcement, the government's approaches and reasoning behind merger enforcement, the impact that changes in the enforcement space have on defense attorneys, and more! Check out the New York Times article written by Lauren Hirsch about one of the highlights of our event: her lunch conversation with PDAAG Doha Mekki! Thank you both for this amazing moment! https://lnkd.in/gyDezY48

Since our Symposium is in two days, we are pleased to announce our schedule. Registration will be open until 10:00 A.M. on Friday and can be done at https://lnkd.in/eYAJUkEP If you are unable to attend in person, please remember that you can still join us via Zoom!