Jens-Uwe Franck
Jens-Uwe Franck is Professor of Private Law, Commercial Law and Competition Law at the University of Mannheim and Senior Member of the Mannheim Center of Competition and Innovation—MaCCI (since 2014). While his main field of research is competition law, research projects regularly address cross-cutting issues and also concern banking and securities regulation as well as consumer protection. Jens-Uwe has widely published in leading European and German law journals including the European Law Review, the Common Market Law Review and the Zeitschrift für das gesamte Handelsrecht. He has repeatedly engaged in research projects with economists. An empirical study on collusion coauthored with Patrick Andreoli-Versbach was published in the International Journal of Industrial Organization. A prize-winning article on cartel damages coauthored with Martin Peitz (Winner, Antitrust Writing Awards 2019: Academic Articles, Private Enforcement) was published in the NYU Journal of Law and Business. Jens-Uwe’s research has for some years now more specifically focused on competition practice and the regulation of digital platforms. Together with Martin Peitz, he wrote the widely acknowledged report on “Market Definition and Market Power in the Platform Economy” for the Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE). In recent research papers, he has analyzed the German “Lex Apple Pay,” a legislative attempt to give payment service providers a right to directly access the NFC interfaces of Apple’s mobile devices (coauthored with Dimitrios Linardatos) and measured the EU Member States’ leeway to regulate platform-to-business agreements (coauthored with Nils Stock).
Antitrust and Competition
Taming Big Tech: What Can We Expect From Germany’s New Antitrust Tool?
Targeted at Big Tech, Germany’s new antitrust tool for dealing with large digital platforms rebalances the power between the competition watchdog and...
Latest news
Regulation
Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured?
Due to a change in how the FDIC resolves failed banks, uninsured deposits have become de facto insured. Not only is this dangerous for risk in the banking system, it is not what Congress intends the FDIC to do, writes Michael Ohlrogge.
Antitrust and Competition
Merger Law Reaches Acquirer Incentives and Private Equity Strategies
Steven C. Salop argues that Section 7 of the Clayton Act prohibits mergers in which the acquiring firm’s unilateral incentives and business strategy are likely to lessen market competition.
Antitrust and Competition
Tim Wu Responds to Letter by Former Agency Chief Economists
Former special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy Tim Wu responds to the November 27 letter signed by former chief economists at the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department Antitrust Division calling for a separation of the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines.
Book Reviews
Can the Public Moderate Social Media?
ProMarket student editor Surya Gowda reviews the arguments made by Paul Gowder in his new book, The Networked Leviathan: For Democratic Platforms.
Income Inequality
Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy
In new research, Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani find that the 1986 Reagan tax cuts led to greater campaign spending from wealthy individuals, who benefited the most from this policy. The authors argue that a very permissive system of political finance, combined with the erosion of tax progressivity, created the conditions for the mutual reinforcement of economic and political disparities. The result was an inequality spiral hardly compatible with democratic ideals.
ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm
Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?
Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.
Antitrust and Competition
The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Will Not Help Grocery Competition
Kroger and Albertsons say they need to merge to compete with Walmart. Claire Kelloway argues that what they really want is Walmart’s monopsony power, and permitting mergers on these grounds will only harm suppliers, workers, and consumers.
