During the 1986 Supreme Court confirmation hearings for then-Judge Antonin Scalia, he was asked about his views on antitrust. “In law school, I never understood [antitrust law],” Scalia explained, “I later found out, in reading the writings of those who now do understand it, that I should not have understood it because it did not make any sense then.” This much-needed coherency in antitrust law was brought about by the adoption of the consumer welfare standard. The intersection of economic analysis and the law provided a neutral underlying principle that allowed conservatives to reign in a broad, unprincipled area of the law that was once used as a political and socioeconomic tool.

Today, this remains one of the greatest success stories of the conservative legal movement. However, recent sentiments within both parties have attracted proposals that would mark a return to highly-interventionist, pre-1970s jurisprudence in which the “sole consistency,” as Justice Potter Stewart famously said, “is that the government always wins.” Our panel of experts will discuss these proposals, their implications, and the best path forward for conservatives.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a coalition of 48 state attorneys general filed two separate lawsuits against Facebook. The complaints argued that the company maintained a monopoly position in the “personal social media networking” market through a series of acquisitions over the past decade intended to buy up potential rivals and by imposing restrictive policies to hinder companies that present competitive threats. Both suits call for the divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp, along with other proposed remedies. Our panel of experts will discuss the lawsuits, the merger review process and FTC enforcement, and assess the implications for consumers, companies, and the law.