Shaoul Sussman

Shaoul Sussman is a Legal Fellow at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. His research focuses on the intersection of antitrust law and big tech. Shaoul has published an academic paper and a number of articles about Amazon’s anticompetitive practices and the company’s negative influence on firms that rely on its e-commerce platform. Shaoul is also part of the Litigation Group at Pearl Cohen LLP. Shaoul’s practice focuses primarily on intellectual property litigation, commercial litigation, IP licensing, antitrust, and due diligence work. Shaoul received his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and his B.A. in Political Philosophy from Bard College Berlin.

The Roots of Congress’ Pathbreaking Report on Big Tech

While the House Judiciary report is chock-full of impressive “gotcha” moments concerning anticompetitive conduct by tech platforms, the real bombshell is the...

Big Tech Is Officially Too Big to Manage

Last week’s Congressional hearing on Big Tech showed the CEOs of the four largest tech platforms unable to answer basic questions about...

Why Amazon Is Poised to Emerge from the Covid-19 Crisis Stronger Than Ever

So far, Amazon has reacted to the coronavirus outbreak with restrictions designed to cement its market power at the expense of merchants and consumers. Amazon...

Virus-Enhanced Market Power: American Small Businesses Are Kept Hostages by Amazon

Amazon announced restrictions on the type of merchandise it will allow sellers and vendors to send into its warehouses because Amazon’s fulfillment services (FBA) has reached...

How Amazon Rigs Its Shopping Algorithm

For companies that sell on Amazon’s platform, “winning the Buy Box”—the area on the right-hand side of the page that says “Add to Cart”...

How Amazon's Pricing Policies Squeeze Sellers and Result in Higher Prices for Consumers

Amazon's price matching policies, which were meant to ensure its dominant position, diminished the ability of brands to control how their products are distributed...

Amazon's Latest Supplier Purge Is a Classic Indicator of Price Predation

Regulators in Washington should immediately launch an investigation into Amazon’s e-commerce business.       In a recent article (and subsequent blog post), I argued that Amazon’s...

Is Amazon Violating the Sherman Act?

A new paper suggests that Amazon’s negative cash flow rapid expansion story may in fact conceal a long-term predatory pricing strategy that violates existing...

Latest news

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.

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.

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.

Innovators Respond to Their Presidential Candidate Winning With More Innovation

Does an inventor’s political identity influence their productivity? In a new paper, Joseph Engelberg, Runjing Lu, William Mullins, and Richard Townsend examine the impacts of the 2008 and 2016 United States presidential elections on Democrat and Republican inventors, with a particular focus on the quantity and quality of patents after the country elects a new president.

Letter to the Editor: Former FTC and DOJ Chief Economists Urge Separation of Economic and Legal Analysis in Merger Guidelines

Seventeen former chief economists of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division urge current Agency heads to separate the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines to strengthen the role of the latter in merger review.

Why the Kroger-Albertsons Merger Is a Mess for Consumers

Grocers Kroger and Albertsons want to merge, which would make them the second biggest retail food chain and, according to them, enhance their ability to compete with Walmart and Costco and offer lower prices to consumers. Christine P. Bartholomew writes that the promises of more competition and lower prices for consumers are unlikely to manifest, and thus the Federal Trade Commission should block the deal.  

After Neoliberalism

The following is an excerpt from Martin Daunton's new book, "The Economic Government of the World: 1933-2023," out November 14.