Managing Expectations: Beyond Formal Adjudication
The international investment system has depended heavily on international arbitration to provide guidance and clarification on the standards contained in international investment agreements. In order to assess the system realistically, this commentary discusses unpacking stakeholder expectations by recognizing where expectations may have been overly optimistic and thinking systematically about the mechanisms through which to capture and manage regulatory discretion. This article evaluates ideas expressed by Anne van Aaken and Bart Legum, which consider different ways to achieve regulatory and commercial balance, and offers a lens for thinking systematically about managing stakeholder expectations in the international investment system. A critical issue for international investment law relates to cognitive psychology and how to manage the expectations of differently situated stakeholders. This commentary explores different methods to managing stakeholder expectations and investment treaty conflict such as education and different doctrinal opportunities such as administrative law’s model of formal and informal rule-making and adjudication. This commentary concludes that an evidence-based nuanced analysis allows consideration of specific dynamics about stakeholder objectives, enabling a more realistic assessment of the international investment regime.
Rules Versus Standards in Antitrust Adjudication
Antitrust law is moving away from rules (ex ante, limited factor liability determinants) and toward standards (ex post, multi-factor liability determinants). This movement has important consequences for the structure of antitrust adjudication, including shifting ultimate decision-making down the legal hierarchy (in the direction of juries, trial courts sitting as fact-finders, and administrative agencies) and increasing the importance of economic experts. The efficiency consequences of this trend are often negative. Specifying liability determinants as open-ended, unpredictable standards increases litigation costs, chills socially beneficial industrial practices, allocates decision-making on microeconomic policy to unqualified juries, and facilitates strategic misuse of antitrust litigation by rent-seeking competitors. Instead of following a generalized preference for standards, courts should consider five factors in choosing the ex ante precision of liability determinants: (1) whether the lawsuit was brought by the government or a private party; (2) whether the legal determinant would create liability or immunize against it; (3) whether the remedy sought is prospective (i.e., injunctive) or retrospective (i.e., damages); (4) whether the conduct is idiosyncratic or paradigmatic; and (5) whether the misconduct alleged is collusion or exclusion.
The Story of United States v. Socony-Vacuum: Hot Oil and Antitrust in the Two New Deals
This is a book chapter in Antitrust Stories (Foundation Press, forthcoming 2007, Dan Crane & Eleanor Fox, eds.), which is part of Foundation Press's Law Stories series. It tells the inside story of United States v. Socony-Vacuum, with an emphasis on the radical swing in antitrust perspectives from the first half of the New Deal to the second half.