2024 William Howard Taft Lecture: Law in a Time Capsule: Should the 1960s Merger Cases Be Affirmed Today?

The 2024 Taft Lecture will address the recent enforcement trend of relying on Supreme Court merger decisions from the 1960s and early 1970s in both litigated cases and the 2023 Merger Guidelines.  The HSR premerger notification regime, as a practical matter, has largely limited the opportunities of the Supreme Court to review the merger cases of the 1960s and early 1970s.  Our lecturers will examine whether those merger cases are contemporaneous reflections on Congress’s intent in reviving Section 7 through legislation modernizing the Clayton Act, or obsolete in light of more recent Supreme Court cases interpreting the Sherman Act, the Robinson-Patman Act, and Section 3 of the Clayton Act.

The Taft Lecture connects practicing attorneys, academics, students, and economists with a scholarly presentation bearing on a contemporary antitrust issue.  The lecture commemorates President and Chief Justice Taft’s many contributions to antitrust law as judge, president, and Supreme Court chief justice.

Breakfast will be served at 8:30 a.m. Programming will begin at 9:00 a.m.
 

Faculty

Andrew Finch, partner at Paul, Weiss and former Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice

David Lawrence, Policy Director at the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice

In Collaboration with the Columbia Business Law Review

Thank you to our Exclusive Sponsor!