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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged antitrust

1. September 7, 2011 02:52 PM

   American Banker Shows DOJ Sat On a Bank-Kickback Scandal

   HUD says big banks got $6 billion, but the attorney general does nothing

   By Ryan Chittum

   American Banker has really been doing some superb stuff lately. Jeff Horwitz has a big scoop in today's paper, reporting on a HUD investigation that says banks forced mortgage insurers to pay them $6 billion in kickbacks over ten years. HUD's inspector general tied a bow on the case and presented it to Obama's Department of Justice, which has sat...

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2. November 27, 2012 06:50 AM

   Amazon sharecroppers

   The Seattle Times on the hometown giant's uneasy relationship with its merchants

   By Ryan Chittum

   The Seattle Times has another good story on Amazon, this time reporting on the hometown giant's lopsided relationship with its third-party retailers. Amazon's Marketplace is a digital consignment store that allows merchants to sell their stuff on Amazon.com in exchange for a 6 percent to 25 percent cut off the top. Sellers take the deal to get access to the...

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3. March 22, 2011 01:28 PM

   AT&T’s Cellphone Industry Rollup Gets Second-Day Scrutiny

   By Ryan Chittum

   The business press continues to be skeptical in its second-day coverage of AT&T's $39 billion deal for T-Mobile. That's a good thing. The New York Times's headline all but says the deal would be bad for consumers: For Consumers, Little to Cheer in AT&T Deal The lede is good: The $39 billion proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile could save...

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4. August 31, 2011 02:48 PM

   AT&T’s Hubris

   By Ryan Chittum

   The Justice Department is suing to stop AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile, which would have consolidated three-quarters of cellphone-plan market into the hands of two companies. I have to say I didn't think they had it in them. The skeptical press coverage given the deal's announcement certainly didn't hurt, nor did later coverage like stories from the Washington Post and...

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5. September 12, 2012 01:33 AM

   Audit Notes: Amazon and antitrust, techspeak, ‘Peter Drucker with an Afro’

   The DOJ's ebook settlement could enable anticompetitive behavior

   By Ryan Chittum

   The Los Angeles Times's Michael Hiltzik gets it on Amazon and the Justice Department's seriously misguided antitrust lawsuit against book publishers and Apple: Amazon's position in the e-book market was so close to unassailable at the time the publishers reached agreement with Apple that many in the industry are still reeling from the government's response. "I'm amazed the Department of...

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6. April 16, 2012 07:49 PM

   Audit Notes: Carr on Amazon, Muni Broadband, Too Big to Fail

   By Ryan Chittum

   David Carr's New York Times column today on Amazon, Apple, and the book publishers is excellent. He calls the Department of Justice's antitrust suit "the modern equivalent of taking on Standard Oil but breaking up Ed’s Gas ’N’ Groceries on Route 19 instead": But pull back a few thousand feet and take a broader look at the interests of consumers....

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7. April 13, 2012 08:05 PM

   Audit Notes: Ebooks, Amazon, and Apple Edition

   By Ryan Chittum

   Barry C. Lynn, author of Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction, writes a good Slate piece on the Justice Department's misguided suit against Apple and book publishers for fighting Amazon's ebooks monopoly. Lynn writes about why low prices aren't always good for consumers: For 200 years after the Boston Tea Party, anti-monopoly enforcement aimed mainly at...

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8. September 19, 2011 07:25 PM

   Audit Notes: Economic Headwinds, Refinancing, Google’s Dominance

   By Ryan Chittum

   Crain's New York Business's Aaron Elstein takes a good look anecdotes at the headwinds New York's economy is facing from the growing financial crisis in Europe, the depressed U.S. economy. Businesses are becoming more risk-averse: “In my 30 years of business, this is the second-worst business environment I've ever seen, after the fall of 2008 and early 2009,” said Allan...

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9. March 23, 2011 11:51 PM

   Audit Notes: Ma Bell II—Duopoly Edition

   By Ryan Chittum

   The Financial Times's John Gapper has an excellent column on why the AT&T's proposed deal for T-Mobile should be shot down. Again, unless it's forced to divest customers and assets, AT&T and Verizon would now dominate the cellphones with a combined 73 percent market share. Verizon conspicuously avoided criticising the deal this week since a 4G duopoly would suit it...

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10. December 13, 2010 08:17 PM

    Audit Notes: Risky Business, Two Economies, Google and Monopoly

    By Ryan Chittum

    The New York Times is good to keep an eye on signs of a return of risky lending. Today it looks at signs that the moribund credit-card industry is stirring again, which could be worrisome on a number of levels like getting more people into more debt and possible bubble behavior as a result of the Fed's monetary policies. But...

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11. March 8, 2011 02:52 PM

    Deal Myopia in the WSJ and NYT on Hard Drive Merger

    By Ryan Chittum

    Here's a good example of how poorly the business press covers acquisitions that could hurt competition. The Wall Street Journal reports today that Western Digital is buying Hitachi's hard-drive business. The headline: Merger to Create PC Drive Giant PC Drive Giant, indeed. The merger will give Western Digital half of all global hard-drive unit sales. What does that mean for...

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12. April 11, 2012 07:56 PM

    Ebooks and Antitrust

    The Justice Department sues Apple and five book publishers for fighting Amazon

    By Ryan Chittum

    Back in 2010, a giant retailer had 90 percent of a market—a near total monopoly (monopsony, if you want to be precise). This company tried to dictate pricing in the industry via its dominant position (aided significantly, to be sure, by its early innovation in the market) and by the fact that it can use its profits elsewhere to subsidize...

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13. June 2, 2011 06:41 PM

    Four Ws From the WSJ

    By Ryan Chittum

    The Wall Street Journal messes up a story atop its Marketplace section today that reports that a judge ordered American Airlines to make its flights available on Orbitz. Here's the top: American Airlines must make its flights available on Orbitz Worldwide Inc.'s websites, an Illinois court ruled Wednesday, a legal victory for the online travel industry in its battle with...

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14. March 21, 2011 07:41 PM

    Good Consolidation Coverage for a Change on AT&T Deal

    The business press is skeptical of creating a duopoly in cell phone service

    By Ryan Chittum

    Fortune's Seth Weintraub pulls a four-year-old Stephen Colbert clip that's as good a place as any to kick off a discussion of AT&T's proposed $39 billion deal for T-Mobile. Colbert's punchline is that the country's antitrust efforts, which broke up AT&T in the early 1980s, have come full circle with AT&T monopoly on cellphones. That was a bit of a...

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15. December 13, 2010 11:46 AM

    Google’s Search Dominance Comes In Handy for Its Other Businesses

    The Wall Street Journal looks at a key competitive issue on the Web.

    By Ryan Chittum

    Google has a near-monopoly on search in the U.S. It uses that dominant position to boost its other businesses at the expense of competitors. We've got a problem here. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at that this morning, pointing out how the search giant is able to dominate —or at least gain a significant position in—other aspects of...

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16. January 6, 2011 03:53 PM

    Hiltzik Takes on the FCC on the Comcast-NBC Deal

    By Ryan Chittum

    John Dunbar has a must-read piece in the current issue of Columbia Journalism Review on why the Comcast-NBC Merger is a bad deal. Go read it. And then go read Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote an excellent column in the Los Angeles Times yesterday eviscerating the logic of the FCC approving Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal...

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17. October 17, 2011 03:17 PM

    Homeless Shelters 4 AT&T-Verizon Duopoly

    By Ryan Chittum

    In June, Politico and the Washington Post ran stories showing how, in exchange for Ma Bell's cash, nonprofits like NAACP and GLAAD turned into unlikely telecom lobbyists for AT&T's bid for T-Mobile, which would give it a duopoly on U.S. cellphone service with Verizon. The Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News writes today that AT&T's largesse, and nonprofits' cravenness went...

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18. December 15, 2010 04:19 PM

    Pearlstein Takes On Google’s Threat to Competition

    By Ryan Chittum

    The Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein takes up the Google monopoly case today with an excellent column in The Washington Post. If you want to know why there's a problem with what Google's doing, this is about the best place to start. This is a critical point: Organic growth=good. Growth by deal=bad, at least for a company the size of Google...

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19. July 5, 2012 06:50 AM

    Reuters’s Chesapeake Energy drumbeat

    Internal emails show companies scheming to lower bids on drilling rights

    By Ryan Chittum

    Reuters continues to draw a bead on Chesapeake Energy and its CEO Aubrey McClendon, whose scalp it will be claiming shortly, reporting that the company schemed to collude with a competitor to keep from bidding up drilling leases on a big auction by the Michigan government and on private deals. Back in April, Reuters reported (with a big assist from...

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20. April 25, 2012 07:55 PM

    The Journal Misses on Ebooks and Antitrust

    By Ryan Chittum

    It's usually wise to read an "experts say" story a little more skeptically than you normally would. That's the case with a Wall Street Journal story earlier this week on the Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against five major book publishers and Apple, who were trying to break Amazon's 90 percent monopoly on the ebook retail market. The headline says...

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