Dear Readers,   Hub-and-spoke theories have long occupied an uneasy middle ground in antitrust law. They sit somewhere between the relative comfort of bilateral vertical agreements and the more demanding...

In an increasing number of markets, data analytics companies are assisting firms in their pricing by training a pricing algorithm based on firms’ data and using it to recommend prices....

Cartels are harmful to economic welfare but may appeal to enterprises. A cartel however is not so easy to implement and sometimes a third party can be helpful. This article...

Hub-and-spoke conspiracies, while less common than traditional forms of collusion, raise important economic questions and pose challenges for courts and practitioners. The involvement of a vertically related third party –...

Courts in the United States have considered hub-and-spoke conspiracies in antitrust cases for more than eighty years. Recently, a new wave of litigation has focused on algorithmic pricing tools as...

This article summarizes the findings of Clark, Horstmann & Houde (2024), which provide the first rigorous economic analysis of hub-and-spoke collusion using evidence from the alleged Canadian commercial bread cartel....

This article analyzes how network-based advantages in the airline industry can weaken competitive constraints without fitting neatly into classic hub-and-spoke conspiracy doctrine. The author shows how legacy carriers, by leveraging...

This article provides an economic framework for analyzing incentives in “hub-and-spoke” conspiracies — arrangements that blend horizontal and vertical market relationships. Models of hub-and-spoke conspiracies involve participants at different supply...

Hub-and-spoke cartels occupy an uneasy position in antitrust enforcement. Although structurally hybrid, combining vertical relationships with horizontal coordination, they generate competitive harm traditionally associated with cartels while raising distinctive evidentiary...

Hub-and-spoke cartels are horizontal in nature, but they involve a “hub” (that can be a common supplier, customer, platform, or intermediary) who intermediates and often cements the agreement between the...

Dear Readers,   Recidivism has an intuitive moral pull in antitrust: if competition law is meant to deter, repeat offending feels like the clearest evidence that deterrence has failed. Yet,...

Sherman Act recidivism once was common, but both corporate and individual penalties have increased significantly, and the U.S. appears to have experienced no antitrust recidivism since the 1999 sentencing of...