Antitrust Chronicle^® – Intermediaries

Dear Readers,

In antitrust policy discourse (particularly, but not exclusively, concerning the digital economy), there is often a background assumption that intermediaries impose a consumer and societal cost. Thus, the colloquial phrase “cut out the middleman” – which, translating from the vernacular to the parlance of antitrust means “disintermediate” the consumption of goods – is a formulation that will never lose currency.

One therefore commonly sees arguments that consumer welfar