Harry First pursues antitrust projects in India and China and elsewhere

In recent months Harry First, Charles L. Denison Professor of Law and director of the Trade Regulation Program, has been actively engaged with antitrust issues in several venues.

At a two-day conference, “Implementing Competition Law and Policy: Global Perspectives,” held in New Delhi on November 18 and 19 by University College London’s Centre for Law, Economics & Society, First gave a presentation on two important aspects of U.S. antitrust and whether they could be successfully implemented in other countries. He also participated in a panel on the intersection between antitrust and intellectual property law issues. The conference was co-organized by Ioannis Lianos (LL.M. ’03), a director of the Centre for Law, Economics & Society.

First’s presentation at the New Delhi conference on the possible exportation of U.S. antitrust measures to other countries was a mirror image of his article “The Case for Antitrust Civil Penalties,” published by the Antitrust Law Journal in 2009. That piece considered expanding U.S. remedies to allow for civil penalties to be imposed in monopoly cases, looking at other countries that used that approach.

“In a sense it’s all part of this internationalization of antitrust,” First said, “moving around the world in different jurisdictions, trying different things, and faced with different challenges.”

Last month, New York State Attorney General-Elect Eric Schneiderman appointed First as a member of his transition committee’s economic justice team, co-chaired by Eric Dinallo ’90. Other team members include Craig Kaplan ’74 and Orin Snyder ’86. Between 1999 and 2001, First led the antitrust bureau in then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office.

In October, First attended the First Congress of Students of Law and Economics, organized by law students at the University of Chile in Santiago. At the congress, which convened law and economics experts, First presented a lecture on intellectual property rights enforcement. While in Chile, he also met with U.S. embassy staff concerned about the level of intellectual property rights protection in that country, and held a roundtable discussion with lawyers and government enforcers on intellectual property rights issues.

Posted on December 14, 2010