A captive academic mouthpiece for Big Tech: NYT reports on the "Global Antitrust Institute"
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The New York Times has reported today on how Google, Amazon, Qualcomm have funded a shill organization, the "Global Antitrust Institute", at George Mason University to amplify corporate talking points that oppose the enforcement of antitrust law. Some extracts below.
- Bruce
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www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/technology/global-antitrust-institute-google-amazon-qualcomm.html
The Tech-Backed Institute That Shapes How Governments Approach Big Tech
Google, Amazon and Qualcomm finance a George Mason University institute teaching a hands-off approach to antitrust regulators and judges.
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — A year ago, antitrust officials from Australia, Brazil, China, Japan and eight other countries enjoyed $110-a-plate steak dinners and unlimited pours from $70 bottles of wine at a beachfront hotel surrounded by panoramic views of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean.
The opulent meal was the culmination of a weeklong conference in scenic Huntington Beach, Calif., for 30 foreign government officials who enforce competition laws. The trip was organized and mostly paid for by the Global Antitrust Institute, a part of the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA...
The Global Antitrust Institute is bankrolled in large part by tech companies — corporate donors like Google, Amazon and Qualcomm — that are facing antitrust scrutiny from some of the regulators who attended its programs...
The documents included donation checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars from Google and Amazon, as well as a three-year, multimillion-dollar donation agreement from Qualcomm. Those checks were a key component of the institute’s $2.1 million budget in the year that ended in June 2019...
The theme of the Global Antitrust Institute’s teaching is clear, said Marshall Steinbaum, an assistant professor at the University of Utah’s economics department. He reviewed a reading list and curriculum of last year’s conference in Huntington Beach and characterized the program as “in line with the institute’s long-term agenda of weakening antitrust laws.”
Among the reading material is a paper by Hal Varian, who is now Google’s chief economist and who argues that the usual economic hallmarks of monopoly power do not apply to tech companies because of the nature of digital products...
Tommaso Valletti, who served as the chief competition economist for the European Commission from 2016 to 2019... said the institute presented one-sided examples of competitive markets working correctly to reinforce the view that markets left on their own work well — to the benefit of entrenched tech companies.
“They do not give a balanced perspective of economics and its application to antitrust,” said Mr. Valletti...
The Global Antitrust Institute’s head, Mr. Wright, is a divisive figure within the world of antitrust law. He became the institute’s executive director when he returned to George Mason University after serving as one of the five Federal Trade Commission members from 2013 to 2015...
When Mr. Wright stepped down from the F.T.C., he joined Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati — the law firm that represented Google in antitrust matters...
He is also known for his close ties to Google. During the F.T.C. nomination process in 2012, Mr. Wright was criticized for his paid work for the search giant and agreed to recuse himself from Google matters. Google had helped to fund several of his academic works including a 2011 paper: “Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Case Against Google.” ...