December 11, 2005

Alito on antitrust

The American Antitrust Institute, a group that tends to favor expansive interpretations of its particular legal specialty, sniped at nominee Alito a few weeks back as "not favorably disposed toward the private enforcement of the antitrust laws" (coverage then: David Giacalone, AntitrustProf Blog, PSoTD, (Anti)Trust Me, Donald Luskin, GreatAjax, Antitrust Hotch Potch). Now Philadelphia's legal paper, the Intelligencer, is out with an analysis by Carl W. Hittinger that analyzes Judge Alito's stance on antitrust issues, still not very sympathetically but in a more careful and detailed way than AAI (making clear, for example, that on the crucial issue of standing, i.e., who can sue, Alito has taken very much the same conservative view as Chief Justice Roberts). At Larry Ribstein's Ideoblog site, Joshua Wright further investigates a key case (SmithKline), and finds Judge Alito to have been scrupulously strict on matters of both law and fact-finding (cross-posted at Point of Law).