Antitrust Claims after LinkLine: The Future of Section 2 Liability Examined

Recently the Supreme Court has been skeptical of expansive Section 2 liability claims, and its decision in Pacific Bell Telephone Co.,dba AT&T California v. LinkLine Communications, is no exception. LinkLine continued the Court’s recent line of cases that have taken a narrow view of liability under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits exclusionary conduct that may give a firm a monopoly, or allow it to preserve or extend its monopoly. 
           
LinkLine, an independent provider of DSL Internet access, relied upon AT&T to provide wholesale access to its DSL network. AT&T also provided retail DSL service to consumers.  Thus, AT&T was both a provider to, and a competitor of, LinkLine. Plaintiffs claimed that AT&T priced its wholesale DSL access too high, and its retail DSL service too low, so that independent providers like LinkLine were unfairly squeezed and unable to earn a profit.

Our panel of experts, including attorney writers from the renowned SCOTUSblog, will analyze the high court’s finding that Section 2 does not recognize LinkLine’s "price squeeze" claim.  They will also examine what it means to antitrust in general, particularly in light of a recent sports licensing case that has drawn intense interest from the NFL, the NBA, and the NHL.
           
Questions to be addressed:

• Does the Court's decision add anything new to Section 2 jurisprudence? What does the Court's decision mean for the future of Section 2?
• Is the Court relaxing predatory pricing liability standards for monopolists? Is it signaling a future rollback of liability for predatory pricing claims?
• The Court broadly states that "for antitrust purposes, there is no reason to distinguish between price and nonprice components of a transaction." What implication does this have for antitrust liability?
• Did the Court even need to decide the case at all, or is the Dissent correct that given the pleading posture of the case, the appeal was essentially moot? What does the court's willingness to decide the merits of the case mean for its approach to antitrust cases generally?

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