Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hudson Institute Discussion On U.S. Antitrust Policy 20240713

Good afternoon. I am senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and i will be your host today. Has a very distinguished resume, which you can find at the department of justice website. Before we get started i have two requests. One is is if you could take your cell phones and put it on silent mode so that we dont have unnecessary interruptions of that sort. The second is for the q a session we will have cards that you can write questions, and those cards are going to be passed around and you can write your questions. They will be collected and i will sort through those. We particularly would like to welcome our cspan guests and other guests that are watching through various video links, as well as our online guests who are watching at the hudson website. For online and for our video guests, you, too, can submit questions, submit them to hashtag pets and events in those questions will be collected hudson events. Assistant attorney general delrahim computer had a distinguished tenure that has been noted by lots of innovations, lots of ways of looking and thinking outside the box. One has to do with the review of Consent Decrees that have been in place since long before the people who sign the Consent Decrees have unfortunately passed away. Decades for somebodys Consent Decrees, that have been reopened or reviewed, and you have taken the step of reviewing some of these. Can you tell us, last summer the paramount Consent Decree was being reviewed. Can you tell us about where you are in redoing some of these aging Consent Decrees . Sure. First, let me thank you for inviting me to be here. Its always an honor to be with you and to discuss the most important issues that we deal with in the antitrust division. The Consent Decrees, its an interesting one because its an area where most people were not even aware that we had close to 1300 Consent Decrees. These are basically settlements and judicial orders that are between the Justice Department and passed defendants with whom weve had an enforcement action. We began systematically reviewing all of them. Some of these involve piano rolls and a cartel and horseshoes, and some of them go to things that are as relevant as todays theatrical Movie Distribution or Performance Rights for music. We began looking at them in a transparent way, asked for Public Comment, take a look to see are they still relevant, and the ones that were not, we would go to the course and file for their termination or modification as needed. So we, i think i want to say, close to 70 of the Consent Decrees have been reviewed and filed with courts and pending in some process, that i think over half already been terminated by various courts. Paramount is one of the ones that has gotten some attention. I dont recall exactly how many Public Comments we got, but we put those up. We got a lot of comments from folks, and whats interesting about those degrees as some of you may know is that they have been around since the 1948, 49 if im not mistaken so little over 70 years. And they have regulated in effect the way movies are distributed in a in a theatricl distribution in the exhibitor system. Initially, the antitrust action was against a number of studios who had conspired amongst each other and they also own the theatrical visit and they wanted to control that system. The settlement basically forced them to sell and not reacquire the theaters, if you were a studio, but it had a number of other conditions. For example, every movie had to be negotiated theater by theater basis. Theres been a lot of changes in the marketplace. Movie theaters, theres been circuits that have grown since then and does it make sense for you to do that . Theres bands on lock booking, bans on circuit giving, and block booking is can you have one movie and say that if youre going to take star wars you must also take hurt locker or Something Like that. And bans on resale price. A number of the bands, the courts for the selling seven yf and not to be per se violations but also the markets have changed so we began looking at that. We reached a determination may be two or three weeks ago, we filed with the Southern District of new york a motion to sunset those decrees other than a transition period for two of the practices, block booking and circuit dealing. It was our determination that theres a lot of innovation that could have been prevented by these rules, and congress has not given us the authority, the Statutory Authority to regulate these in perpetuity. So thats one of the reasons weve done that. We are waiting for the judge to take a look and see if they would, and we are excited about the overall project. Its really part of the deregulatory mission were antitrust enforcement is actually standing in a way of competition and innovation i could be occurring. So thats, that is the process we are in. We have put for Public Comment that to make music decrees, received about 850 comments but in the process for determining what to do there. Have to been periodic reviews of these in the past, or will it take another 70 years to have the antitrust Division Review the aging Consent Decrees . Since 19 said that all Consent Decrees have about a ten year time period, or shorter. Some are seven or five, but all of them expire. These that we are looking at are ones that predated 1979, so hopefully as a matter of course we wont have any more that are pending for 70 years here if theres a real market failures that should be something for other policymakers to step in. Have there been periodic reviews . On some of these that have been. Theres been a couple of times over the years that there has been a review. I dont believe paramount in a public sense has been, but there was one that im told maybe about 11 years ago where the division took a look and wanted to take a similar action but decided not to. But it was not in a way that was systematic to all Consent Decrees, and two, it wasnt one where we had the type of Public Commentary for that process. One of the reasons some people might ask, if these are defendants who are long gone are dead, why waste the time to do it . Part of that is that the industry looks at these Consent Decrees to provide guidance to business. So it is in effect regulating behavior, and if it doesnt make sense, it should not continue o on. Switching gears a bit. One of the innovations youve done last summer, you had some of the issues resolved by arbitration rather than taking it to court. Can you tell us about the use of arbitration in virtue reviews and what you think this is something you might be able to do in the future as well . So we are learning. This is the first time i believe in history that we have used arbitration process to resolve a merger action. It was a transaction involving a merger of aluminum, some Aluminum Manufacturing companies. We took a look and we got to an issue where there was a distinct issue where largely a lot of mergers fall into is, can you determine what the market definition is . What is the Product Market . And you as a trained economist know exactly what im talking about, is that do they meet the economic standards for these separate and distinct antitrust market . In this one the question was, what we were talking about, aluminum body sheets, whether steel was a close substitute or not. The merger would have, our concerns would have risen and fallen based upon that determination. So it could have gone to court, got a judge, mitigated the matter for months, perhaps a year, and then waited on the judge to determine, no timeclock for that, another six, seven months, eight months, nine months, perhaps a couple of years for this process. Instead of doing that we said okay, there could be a predetermined outcome depending on which way this market is defined. And we, i propose to the parties, would they agree to submit this to arbitration . We, private sector arbitrate many issues. We could fight an arbitrator who understands law and economics level. If they decide one way or the other, fine, we could live wih that. Two, we could put very certain time limits on the process. We could agree to a discovery process. We could decide amongst ourselves that this will take a two week trial before the arbitrator. We can use the aaa rules to identify an arbitrator where we are both comfortable, or a panel of three, and theres a a procs where this is done every single day. And as we are researching this we also identified the statute, lo and behold, called the administrative dispute resolution act of 1996, and attorney general reno and my predecessor and bingaman had issued some rules and commentary about it, even though itd never been used. So it protected the rights of the parties and for example, to get thirdparty discovery which is really important to defend against it. And it preserved that. We filed a case and we are going through that now. We have learned as have the parties through this, this was a brandnew process, but i think what it will do is, if successful, and again i think in a couple of months once weve gone through it, our staff and the parties will also learn as well as the arbitrator about how good how could this be even more efficient or more direct, which side could benefit from it . The idea is really to have certainty and get a fair look rather than sometimes a generalist judge whos had two years of multibilliondollar transaction just dumped on them, and they are expected to rule. This could provide that in some of the more technical areas. If youre in the business world, if youre in a private equity and you are looking at a transaction, a lot of times you want to know what are the risk factors . What are the Regulatory Risk . Can we get through this . A lot of time the merger break up fees are determined by the assessment of the risk. Here you can say we can do this, however, there is this issue we could either sell this plant or this asset, depending on what the market definition is, or whatever the potential issue could be. It could be cabined to something that is manageable, im hoping arbitration is the way that we can save taxpayer money and get better results ultimately for the taxpayer. Antitrust law as an institution has grown. 60 years ago there were really just a handful of countries that have antitrust authorities, antitrust laws. Today over 100 countries as well as just about every state in the United States has antitrust laws, enforcement. An increasing challenge is or two challenges, one is harmonization across countries with the antitrust laws and enforcement, and the other is shall we say the propensity of some countries to use antitrust law as part of industrial policy . How do you think about this . So i have joked in the past that antitrust has been our most successful export out of the United States. We have now 140 agencies, give or take, that enforce the antitrust laws. Overall, i think its a positive outcome in the sense that if you have more free markets, more Economic Freedom out there, whether free from Government Intervention or from monopolists and anticompetitive conduct by private sector, its a good thing for consumers. Its a great thing for investment, a great thing for innovation. However, it does present a challenge for making sure that you have consistent application and a common understanding. We dont have a chapter to the wto of dealing with antitrust. We had some common understandings of various terrorist tariffs in standards and intellectual property now, but we do not have a common understanding of what and how to analyze antitrust or one of the greatest things weve had is this dialogue through the International Competition network, icn or oecd where we engage with our partners, with our colleagues. I was just impairs the week before last, spent a week, and we have many discussions, but it does not prevent a party from whether its a merger enforcement or conduct to apply the antitrust laws in a way that we dont recognize, but we recognize press in the 50s and 60s, and economics taught us those were a harm to consumers. So its a challenge that we face every single day, but i think the whole International Community is committed to an approach to antitrust laws that has actually focused on competition. Weve had some recent challenges, i think the leaders in france and germany have both called for application antitrust law, and these are not the antitrust authorities, but the political leaders, to apply them in a way that they have national champions. So and anticompetitive merger otherwise should be approved if it creates a french or german or european champion. I wholeheartedly reject that. I think thats a bad idea. The Austin Siemens merger was one with the issue was potentially addressed, the commissioner from the European Commission actually withstood those calls, and blocked that transaction in a similar way that we had raised concerns. I commend that approach, but that doesnt mean there isnt a concern that it could be 50 whacks at a pinata for a merger where folks are trying to take and extract divestitures from various countries. One of the things we did to try to address procedural aspects of this is we announced an approach to try to see if we could at least get a multilateral agreement on the most basic fundamental principles of due process. These are the rights to counsel, transparency, conflicts of interest, in the broader review. So even if we dont have agreement on the substantive standards, the process, national treatment, most favored nations treatment, so you cant treat a Foreign Company any worse than you would your own subject. And i was pleased that after a lot of work, a lot of giveandtake that occurred, we entered into that agreement in cartagena in may earlier this year and i think last week the staff is telling me with 702 countries that of all signed onto which allow for consultation, at least its the First Step Towards a commitment on the multilateral front and its called, its part of the icn but you dont need to be in icn International Network to join this commitment. Its called the cap, the Competition Agency procedures agreement. So we are in the process of implementing those and reviewing various countries. But i think that is probably one of the most Significant Developments in the International Community since the creation of the icn. Just on a daytoday practice today, do you find a lot of coordination with other countries on mergers that go across National Boundaries . Every single day. We have our case teams with their counterparts. They are coordinating any transaction that crosses borders or has a fax in various different countries. Has effects. We are seeing that. Also engage at the leadership level with our counterparts. We have in february for example, the icn at different working groups, so he Merger Working Group that is having its annual meeting in australia. The actual meeting of the icn for the First Time Ever will be held in the United States in los angeles in may of this year, the second week in may. So all the agencies are going to be coming here and we will be focusing on a a number of thin, including digital competition. That will be on the campus of ucla. Theres a lot of discussion going on every single day, as well as technical assistance. We sent our economists as well as case handlers and prosecutors abroad on the cartel front, on mergers, on the new platform. How do we look at it, and we hope that through this communication we have greater and greater convergence to standards. You were mentioning some political leaders and you are wanting to inject standards that are not consumer consumer will for standards. Theres been a lot of talk in america the past two or three years about what is now popularly called hipster antitrust. Wonder if you could give us some thought to hipster antitrust . Welcome hipster antitrust, for folks who may not have heard it, refers to kind of twisting the antitrust laws away from the common understanding of industrial organization, economics, and it is a way to begin looking at other societal goals outside of competition. And competition, for example, should we take a look at sustainability as part of competition . Should we look at labor as part of Competition Analysis . The way to address perhaps shortcomings of other policy goals. And that is, at one level, it might be a misconception that the general antitrust standards only deal with price points which is just not true. Over and over with the courts have said that the general antitrust laws as applied, apply to not only price but quantity, quality, innovation. And so those are all factors that we need to be discussing more. So does the transaction the quality of the product and, therefore, antitrust laws . Theres been calls about having an absolute moratorium in certain sectors or completely shifting the Legal Standard that we have become familiar with in a merger review, which is a substantial lesson, some kind of Public Interest test. What does it mean . Which if you can imagine just a Public Interest, is this merger in the Public Interest and now youre getting into a potentially vague, constitutionally vague standard if we [inaudible] you might recall although that agency has at least had some case law that cabins it into a way is at least cognizable. It would be dangerous because we wont have predictability of the law, which is really what we need to do. So i think the current laws are flexible enough to address some of the new challenges we are seeing in the general marketplace that may not result in to price the facts but look at quality and innovation and investment and other factors that goes into the consumer welfare standard, and so i hae some hope. That doesnt mean we wouldnt be open to legislative changes, should they be proposed and make sense, consistent with economic understanding. But to address issues that are important issues that have nothing to do with competition as part of antitrust, i think with the misguided and lead us to an area that we have been fighting years to get out of. Switch gears and focus a bit on new technologies. The antitrust division has been doing a lot of work with its intellectual property recently, and standards and essential patents. How do you think about new technologies and intellectual property in antitrust content . So i think the intellectual property laws are some of the most important policies that the government has provided. The economy, and a lot of our leadership in technology and innovation, especially postworld war ii, is the fact that we protected investment in r d. And perhaps better than most of the countries had. In 1995, you know, in the wto we had the trips agreement that allowed for other countries, or report of the the countries to at least have greater minimum recognition of intellectual Property Rights. Intellectual property allows you to invent and really provide competition to the customer, to the consumer. We are much better off that we have smartphones today than we had the old, some motorola tracfone, the flip phone that were used threat. That doesnt mean those technologies were bad. Its just that with a huge paradigm shift moved to what we have now, which with a computing force that we have in our palms and it is created and enabled many of the elements of the economy today. The challenge is if we dont recognize that innovation, the consumer loses. Investment loses. That small company, the innovator loses because income will always have more power to crush out a new entrant that otherwise they wouldnt be able to, the intellectual property laws provide. Theres been a lot of debate about this and it gets down to some nuances of whether or not patent owners can hold up for higher prices than competitive levels and, therefore, the consumers harmed because they will have higher prices. Or can patent users, the licensees of technology, band together and hold out, the use and implementation of a new technology and a monopolistic effects so they get less money than the intellectual Property Rights would and should afford them im a big fan of the markets and free market negotiation determine what those rights should be. And certainly not about collusive activity either by the patent owner or the licensee that disrupts exactly what that licensing rate should be. A lot of the changes, a lot of the policy discussions we had, some of the statements of interest we have filed in courts goes to the heart of that. Congress determines a certain balance in the intellectual Property Rights, and antitrust law should not be contorted to try to take away Rights Congress has given to the small inventor or the big inventor, whoever has invested. Otherwise, the incentive to innovate goes away and it would be shortsighted to take a snapshot look at static competition and say were going to look at this box, and if this is lower 5 , the consumer benefits. Without thinking about the implications of what will innovate to make this box almost irrelevant and crush the prices of those. Imagine, i dont know how much the market is for a motorola startac flip phone today, ill guarantee you its a hell of a lot more because of the competition provided by the great new innovations that have come in. And i think our imagination cannot be broad enough to imagine what the next level of Generation Technology will be, and we cannot take away that incentive, otherwise we will lose competitiveness in the United States. As the nation do you think we are addressing disputes in intellectual property as efficiently as we could . What im thinking about is the different institutional processes that someone can go through to challenge intellectual property and some discussion that sometimes a lot of innovation is being lost. Its a broader question of the whole legal system. Do we have the most efficient system . Can we design a better system . I dont really know if there is in this area. I do know in the antitrust, some of the reasons we were using the arbitration process for agency cases is to address that, because you can address it in a much more timely and efficient manner to preserve potential effects of the transaction while happening the harmful effects rather than waiting two years and even losing that transaction potential. Intellectual property, my guess would be the same, although theres been a lot of debate over the last ten, 15 years in congress what is been a number of changes that at the pto. And i think our new leader there who whos doing a phenomenal job in ensuring the quality of patents in that in the process is as good as it could possibly be. So we will see. Youve also been taking some look at Standards Development organizations, and a lot of this has a very big effect on 5g development and new wireless technologies. Any thoughts about antitrust in standard organizations . So weve taken a look, and i think we have issued a Business Review letter, which has gotten a little bit less noticed, the impact of that, just the last two weeks. And this dealt with little sim cards that we all find in our phones but the esim is a tech does this been around for about ten years believe it or not and its in all of our ipads and i believe the apple watches, but not in all of our phones. And esim is a way or you dont have to go to a store or by the little card to switch. You can do that electronically. Its embedded in it and it is done through software. Why is that good . Because the carrier could send to you, we can offer you 40 a month plan unlimited. You can switch anytime you want. Your carrier, just press this button. Would you do that . You might be enticed to do that. You might have some real price competition. However, if your current phone prevent you from doing that could shift to go and switch your phone out completely between carriers, that is not available. In europe it is available, so its interesting is that it marries into the standardsetting business. So the gfma which is typically a trade Association Began going down a path of developing a technical, technological standard. But what was the goal of that standard . It was to prevent the implementation of esims. And an innovation that couldve been fantastic as far as consumer mobility, and make it a lot easier for folks to be able to be on the receiving end of aggressive pricing practices. Well, that Business Review letter which he said that in your future conduct you cannot do certain things you have done in the past, is a great resolution, and i understand, just last week, i believe that thursday, the gfma adopted a whole new standard and did away with its previous one that allows Going Forward implementation of these proconsumer technologies and all of the new handsets which will have real impact, but it also showed that some of the folks who were implementing the standard, you can take a look at the quoted emails and documents in that review letter about what some went through to try to prevent the consumer from getting the benefit of esims, and thats the type of standardsetting that has varied in this anticompetitiveness. This past summer you and chairman simon at the ftc announced possible reviews or investigations of some tech platforms. Without going into in the ongoing investigations or anything like that, but just wonder if you could tell us at a very high level about antitrust concerns in new technologies . This is something that is i think many agencies, states attorney generals are looking at. We i think like others hear complaints from market participants, consumer groups, academics about the concerns about competition in some of the larger platform operators. I gave a speech that laid out some of these concerns and some of the legal concerns in a speech that was this summer in tel aviv, and have expanded on it a little bit about to relook at nonprice the facts, do we look at data and how does data play into this concerns you have . A small group of companies that each have very high and sustain market shares, certain markets. I dont want to talk about in specific companies what i think a couple of companies have confirmed publicly that they have received inquiries from us, but its an important area that i think both agencies are focusing on, harley because it affects every one of us, every one of us are users of some of these technologies. And as ive said and the attorney general has said, big isnt bad, and that incentive to Grow Market Share done in appropriate way should remain there, not punished by the antitrust laws. If you gained the market share or maintaining high market shares, if youre a dominant player, through conduct that would violate the antitrust laws, thats something the antitrust enforcement should be concerned about and engaged in. So we have begun a broadbased review, and we will see where that leads. Is privacy and antitrust a concern . Its a question. So privacy could be an element of quality. So if you dont have competition and theres a revealed preference in consumers that they would like to have this product with more privacy, like theres no ability for for a nw entrant to come in to provide a product that respect privacy, then that is an antitrust concern. Because that could be an element upon which companies will compete. However, you not providing certain privacy protections in and of itself does not become a violation of antitrust law. And we have a number of privacy regimes. You have financial privacy and healthcare privacy and electronic data privacy, and in different ways, you know, bank records, privacy, credit reports privacy, drivers license privacy. We dont have a generalized privacy regime in the United States, and so that something i think that is a larger policy debate between the policy making authorities. We just the law. But to the extent it is an element of a quality element of the antitrust law, it certainly can be. I i have often argued that te antitrust division has the greatest concentration of economic thought at the federal government. Certainly the greatest concentration of economists who do nothing but think about markets. Do other and the ftc has concentration as well. Do other federal agencies approach you and sort of say we need help with understanding how markets operate in some area that they might be regulating or maybe purchasing goods and services in some way that they want to understand it better how markets operate . So the short answer is yes. And we do have probably the greatest group of approximately 50 or so phd economists at the antitrust division, give or take a couple, at least on attrition york we do provide other executive branch agencies, department of transportation, agriculture, trade reps, the council of economic advisers, with either details where folks can get ensconced in some of those agencies, or we will provide some analysis for them. Depending on what they are looking at. Sometimes they may not even ask but we might provide our views. Ferc is another one for any regular agency for which there could be economic input into how the regular the market, weve been engaged in and we weve provided what we think would be the best analysis for their mission. Either what to do a a what noto do in certain circumstances because it ultimately would harm the consumer. What we are proud of the economic order to come out for the division. A lot of them produce a lot of Academic Research Going Forward. We have recently held a a numbr of workshops that the economists have been involved in, for example, antitrust of labor markets. We look at Digital Advertising market in antitrust. We looked at the government regulation and competition, and the economists like a huge role in helping us think through these issues. I could go on asking you questions all day and that would be fair to you or our audience that im sure has a lot of questions. You dont want to punish them that long. Or i dont want to punish you either. I think we are collecting some questions from the audience, and great. Thank you very much. This what about healthcare. In managed care how sufficient are the state approval review when conducting doj investigations . Are the state approvals . Yes, state reviews. Well, we were close with bh the state regulatory bodies as well as the state ags era we e grieving with several healthcare transactions right now. One in massachusetts, including harvard and costs. We are looking at 17th and welker and a few others but we work closely with them tufts. Sometimes theres a dual authority upon which their result could impact our decision because it changes the market. Heres a question going back to the gfma issue. It says why did you do this through prl rather than a binding Consent Decree . Well, it was one where we, and a number of factors go into those decisions. One is, with a past negative the practice be stopped and a new process be put in place with our guidance . And that was a case where that occurred, and also depending on litigation risks and resources of the division and the parties we thought that when the request came in through a Business Review letter to abstain from the harmful conduct and accept guidance of the proper way of Going Forward, we thought that was the better way. That was part of what went into the thinking. Last week your eu counterpart stated with the benefit of hindsight she wishes she would have been bolder a couple questions here, google, eu pursuing cases against google. I dont know if you would like to address that or if you want to dodge, thats fine, too. No, i have tremendous amount of respect for my counterpart in europe who was just we opt for another five years, also extended her authorities as a phenomenal enforcer. Now, they have different laws and tools at their disposal in europe. In the United States as many of you know we have to go to court, bear the burden of proof, prove they kissed by preponderance of the evidence in a civil case. Criminal case, the on the shadow of a doubt. And then we also dont have civil fine authority for violations of the antitrust law, but we also complement that with private rights of action. In europe the commission can, through the statement of objectives, can impose a duty and then the court case comes afterwards. So it goes through a process, and their standard for monopolization or abuse of dominance as it is called in europe under article 102 of the treaty there is the equivalent to our section two, is a different standard and a little bit lower skin that what we have to face. So a little bit of different legal regime between the two agencies, but as far as her wish to have been more aggressive, im not fully familiar. I would say pretty aggressive in some of the matters, but also these markets evolve. Market shares remain and there some changes that you might not have done six years ago, and sometimes as as a monday mornig quarterback you might think well, had we brought that transaction or otherwise, this company would not be where there are, and some have raised facebook concerns. Had they not merged with instagram or whats at, maybe we would have a different market place and i will do that to the agency who is looking at those issues, but its difficult to kind of look back in every instance. Heres a question that says attorney general barr said tech platforms should be quoted quote Good Samaritans in the context of section 230. Section 230 is provision of the Communications Act that creates sort of a safe harbor on uploaded content thats supposedly not edited. The question really has to do with this concept of Good Samaritan and our Technology Platform companies acting as Good Samaritans, or is that maybe not the most exact description . I would refer folks to the attorney generals speak he gave a fantastic speak at the National Association of attorneys general last week that discussed section 230 and the departments review an interest in the issue. So i think thats what not that antitrust consideration but its one where he has raised it and congress recently did address some small aspect of it did with protection of child predation where, whether or not the absolute immunity made a lot of sense. I think the attorney general referenced judge katzmann, second circuit, the dissent in the case. Ill leave it for folks to read and decide for themselves. Heres a question that goes back in history, and he goes back to the microsoft case, which was a great antitrust cases in the past 20 years. How has that case played out . Any thoughts . Is that something you think about back on historical cases and whether they would be done the same we did as they were then . I do. So we look back at the case. Thats an important case for a couple of reasons, and not exactly on all fours of some of what were looking at but its an important one for not only the law to develop in section two but also to push back on the argument that antitrust laws were not equipped to deal with software or new technology. You might recall that was one where they said how could there be a antitrust violation . The internet browser is being given away for free attached to the operating system. And so, how could there be a possible antitrust violation . The courts, a unanimous court, chief judge at the time is no less than one of the greatest antitrust lawyers and a jurist of our time in Doug Ginsburg wrote a unanimous decision on some aspects of that. I think that is, continues to build on the important legacy. But whats also important to note is my colleague and our Deputy Attorney general of the United States was also a litigant in that case representing netscape at the time in that case. We are fortunate to have leadership at the Justice Department who really understand the critical elements of antitrust law, particularly in these Dynamic Market economies. Heres a question about 5g and huawei, and those are two topics that are gotten a lot of attention here at hudson the past couple of years. There is a lot of jockeying for position in the Network Equipment manufacturing market, which is a global market. And lets just say parts of the market a very competitive and parts or maybe not as competitive as they could be. Is this an area that antitrust division is, and again i dont want to get into in ongoing things, not do you think about the Global Markets for the development to 5g as part of, at the division . So we think about them, and i will explain how, in what ways we think about them. We dont think about National Championship as an antitrust issue, but and certainly to the extent there is National Security division issues, or the question refers to those with huawei, i will refer them to the National Security division of the Justice Department and other folks at the treasury department. Department. But as a general matter, sure, 5g something that is going to be here within the next three years, and different markets very soon, and have played into our sprint and tmobile merger review, which was one that we determined that there would be harm if not remedied and there was a lot of procompetitive elements of that merger which we wanted to harness and then addressed the anticompetitive elements, which we did with the resolution we reached, not of course they stage a lady getting that Southern District of new york. Its the second week of the trial going on. But what the procompetitive benefits for the consumer in that he felt a 5g, and not just 5g and and of itself, but the quality elements that combined tmobile sprint kumbaya and compete with at t and verizon. But even more informally, the ability to compete with cable by providing wireless fixed rod and to many homes. Many homes right now will have one, perhaps the most two broadband providers or cable operator and the fiber operator. And what we studied and sought is that if we could speed up and allow for greater competition to come in that 5g is going to be able to provide you broadband access. That will shift a lot of other markets around and not just the retail telepathy which will be a really important. So thats one way we considered that, because its not something we can deny. Its a matter of time when we have 5g, my guess is that many of our lifetimes theres going to be 6g. Not a surprise to folks, engineers who are working of these are not going to stop thinking about them and approving, which is a dynamic competition. We want to incentivize that because we all benefit from that. That. I dont know, we know, we could even imagine the types of innovations and Consumer Products and the type of connectivity today that will come with 5g, i dont think many of us wouldve imagined the type of product and services we are getting now with 4g and lte that was in place about ten years before. Is there a precedent for states going to court to overturning doj Consent Decree on the merger . Not that i know of, and certainly not where states have gone in, but there has been a considered view of the division and a remedy to it, as well as another Economic Regulatory Agency which congress has given a lot of authority to in this field. When the two expert agencies have done so, there isnt a precedent. We will see if there is going to be an overturning. Its going to be in the judges hands. Went to looking at is not the underlying merger but i assume and hopefully they will be looking at as a matter of law is the underlying merger as remedied by the Justice Departments review. And ive seen some press reports that its simplistic, this goes from four the three of why we want to do that . That is just a very supplemental reading of what the transaction provides, partly because as you understand it better than most is that all of a sudden with this remedy you are going to have 200 megahertz a very powerful midband, low band frequency that is not being used put into work and create additional Competitive Forces on at t and verizon preps to also catch up real fast. So the procompetitive efficiencies here are recognizable, real and they should be considered and we will see what happens in the Southern District of new york. Ive been very impressed with the judges attention in that trial as ive been getting the daily reports of that and ive been paying very close attention. I think the judge has been paying good attention and asking important questions. Seems like he is really understanding the transaction. Final question. If you look at the largest corporations in america today, none of them existed a generation ago, and that operate in markets, many of which didnt exist a couple of years ago. It must be a daunting task to keep track with understanding markets that are, i would argue, changing more rapidly than they have in the past. How do you do that . Is that something, whether its in Electronic Technology or pharmaceutical technology or financial, all of these new types of services that have created new markets, and antitrust Division Needs to understand how these operate to understand, and understand competition in these markets. How do you do that . Well, it is at some level it can be daunting, except for what you focus on what is it that we do. At its core as an antitrust enforcer we are law enforcers. We enforce what cox has given us, not what we wish the market could look like. We are policing really fair markets, free from cheating, cheating by collusive activity, cheating by somebody who is a a monopolist. And we are not here to pick winners and losers. We let the market decide whether or not vhs or beta max winds. Its our job to put in, theres a lot of folks who get paid there in like ten years i have certificates of election to say what the world should look like, and sometimes they will introduce legislation to do that. Our job is really important for us to know a limited role, and that humility is important. What we do, which is policed the markets, let the market win, and i think that is the most significant thing for us to do to allow the progression to take place for the benefit. And if we can prevent monopolists from blacking out a market where theres no investments because of the activity for the next generation or new competition to that, or enforce against folks who engage in collusive activity to fix prices, the bite of the market, divide and allocate custards, which they go to jail for, then we have done our job and let the system win. Its not our job to determine whether blockchain is a successful Artificial Intelligence goes fast or not. Its just to allow those markets and the market economy function properly. Well, with that, thank youo much. Thank you. Attorney general delrahim, its an honor to have you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] this holiday week booktv is on cspan2 every day with primetime features each night. Tonight, the theme is best sellers. Watch tonight beginning at eight eastern on cspan2, and enjoy booktv this week and every weekend on cspan2. This weekend booktv features three new nonfiction books. Stop and think of that just for a minute. The russians have won him for president and elected to against all odds to be president of the United States, and he is a russian spy. Think about that for a minute. Thats like landing a man on the moon. Thats like the assassination of julius caesar, like christopher columbus. Thats one of the greatest events of World History if they were able to actually achieve that. Philosophers have been thinking about fairness for time immemorial, lots of people for things like privacy and the like. They have never had to think about these things in such a precise way that you could actually write them into a a Computer Program or into an algorithm. Getting into jazz and starting to read these other writers more seriously, i began to wonder why my friend and i had such a narrow conception of this rich, cultural position. Why thought my father was out of this. Exemplifying it. Watch book tv this weekend and every weekend on cspan two. Defense officials discuss current u. S. Sanctioned policies iran, turkey and north korea. The event was held by center for new american security. About an hour and a half. Good morning. Welcome to this event on u. S. Sanctions and deterrence. I direct the Economics Program here. It isan a pleasure to have you l here with us. Ur todays session is ans opportunity to talk about the financial