Antitrust
I don't have the proper bibliographical info for the book chapters. I noted the number from the two PDFs of the book where appropriate. You might wish to add the proper info and change the notes to fit.
MARKET CONDITIONS in the U.S.: It would seem highly unlikely that this information alone would be sufficient to bring an antitrust action. Prudent and even gutsy or aggressive business people might well seek such information to generate a competitive advantage with little intention toward manipulating the market (Fried Frank, 2002). Even if it does lean toward some expected restraint of trade (Sherman Act), what is occurring at this point clearly passes the reasonableness test. Talking of such issues is not collusive price fixing and suggests no conscious parallelism, for example, which might indicate that their association is for inappropriate purposes (pg. 468).
DETAILS of INDIVIDUAL SALES: In this instance the burden of predatory intent would still be high, since it would be necessary to establish that the company's actions materially hurt the market as a whole and that they were involved in some degree of influential manipulative pricing. In Matsushita, the highest court found little evidence of this with substantially more of a record for review. Were there "category captains" or some such known entity that manipulated the distribution of automobiles to distributors, the case might be closer to allowing for some level of concern, but what is provided would likely still come up short in deference to good business practices.
AVERAGE COSTS: Average costs and related general information is not...
Said Elzinga (nd) of this issue in regards to Matsushita,
There was some evidence that a Japanese trade association (the Electronic Industries Association of Japan) gathered and disseminated average prices of televisions sold for export, but no record of exchanges of current price information, much less agreement on prices or quantities of export. Absent evidence of this character, the plaintiffs' predation case becomes one requiring proof of predatory pricing by individual defendants.
INTERNATIONAL LAW: The importance of the decision in Matsushita rested on the validity of economic predictions and judgments bearing on cross-national actions. The Supreme Court had difficulty with this issue, acknowledging that it could not make a good judgment about whether something was competitively advantageous or not in one country (Japan) vis-a-vis America's market interests. Since that time, however, multi-lateral trade and even security agreements have altered this game. A 2007 Federal Trade Commission posting addresses this issue well,
It is clear that antitrust is becoming increasingly important to American firms that are more and more involved in international transactions. These firms must be carefully attuned not only to the antitrust laws of the United States but also to the competition policies and antitrust enforcement regimes of the other nations in which they operate. A surprising number of nations are paying heightened attention to the role of antitrust enforcement in keeping their markets free and efficient (FTC, 2007).
Another…
