Antitrust Brainstorming Board with Daniel Francis

Below, we have provided the full transcript of the interview with Daniel Francis, Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, recorded on September 7, 2021.

This interview was done as part of the Antitrust Brainstorming Board created by CPI with the support of the CCIA.

Thank you, Mr. Francis, for sharing your time for this interview with CPI.

A video of the complete interview is available HERE.

Do you think the current antitrust framework works for consumers?

Daniel FRANCIS:

I think the answer to that question depends on what you think the antitrust laws should do. So my own view is that the antitrust laws are there to serve consumers by balancing two things. One is it should protect them from transactions or practices that are going to harm them as buyers or sellers, including sellers of their own labor in the market, by dampening competition. It’s the first thing the antitrust laws should do. Second thing, though, is it should also protect consumers from the risk that agencies or courts might themselves dampen competition by prohibiting or deterring aggressive rivalry. Antitrust has to balance those two sources of consumer benefit, always with what’s best for the consumer in mind, and by those lights or against that standard, I think the antitrust rules are basically in the right shape, but are probably a bit too blunt on some important margins.

I could imagine, a handful of changes that would make a lot of sense in the law from the perspe