Professor Deborah A. Geier was a guest on WCPN’s “Sound of Ideas” show on February 25 to discuss the possibilities regarding how Amazon earned $11.2 billion in 2018 profits and paid no Federal income tax (getting a $129 million tax refund). Amazon also earned $5.6 billion in 2017 profits and paid no Federal income tax (getting a $137 million tax refund). From 2009 to 2018, Amazon earned a total profit of roughly $26.5 billion and paid approximately $791 million in Federal income tax, for an effective Federal income tax rate of 3% for the period. Along with Professor Daniel Shoag, a Harvard economics professor currently visiting at CWRU, Professor Geier explored the larger tax policy landscape shaped by these and similar stories. You can watch the show here.

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, spoke recently with a number of media outlets about ongoing antitrust matters.

He spoke with Bloomberg twice, for a story on the Justice Department’s widely expected loss on appeal in its challenge to the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, and for a separate story on potential antitrust challenge to Facebook’s controversial plan fully to integrate its subsidiaries Instagram and Whatsapp.

He also spoke with a number of subscription news services. He spoke with Global Competition Review  three separate stories–about the recent success  of monopolization plaintiff Trendsettah in the Ninth Circuit against the maker of Swisher Sweets cigar products, about the AT&T loss, and about a newly announced tech-sector task force established by the federal trade commission. He spoke with the communications industry newsletter Communications Daily on the AT&T merger appeal, and he spoke with an investor newsletter called Reorg M&A  about the pending FTC challenge  to the merger of the pigment manufacturers Tronox and Cristal.

Finally, he spoke with FTC:Watch [about the possibility of extending antitrust liability to in-house attorneys who assist in antitrust violations, as in certain remarkable recent cases in which drug company attorneys coordinated so called “citizen petition” efforts before the Food and Drug Administration.

Professor Deborah A. Geier was a guest on WCPN’s “Sound of Ideas” show on February 25 to discuss the possibilities regarding how Amazon earned $11.2 billion in 2018 profits and paid no Federal income tax (getting a $129 million tax refund). Amazon also earned $5.6 billion in 2017 profits and paid no Federal income tax (getting a $137 million tax refund). From 2009 to 2018, Amazon earned a total profit of roughly $26.5 billion and paid approximately $791 million in Federal income tax, for an effective Federal income tax rate of 3% for the period. Along with Professor Daniel Shoag, a Harvard economics professor currently visiting at CWRU, Professor Geier explored the larger tax policy landscape shaped by these and similar stories. You can watch the show here.

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Distinguished Professor of Law, will present as part of a conference this weekend at the NYU School of Law’s Classical Liberal Institute, entitled “Understanding the Visible: The Undisputed Facts and Disputed Law of Platform Antitrust.” Also presenting will be NYU presenters Richard Epstein, Eleanor Fox, Harry First, Mario Rizzo, and several other leading scholars of antitrust and economics.

His paper, “Platforms, American Express, and the Problem of Complexity in Antitrust,” asks whether it was wise for the Supreme Court in last year’s Ohio v. American Express to adopt the so-called “platform” or “two-sided markets” theory as a way of analyzing antitrust issues in credit cards and other payment systems.

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio published a blogpost on Intlawgrrls, entitled “The Legality of President Trump’s National Emergency Declaration.” In this post, Professor Sterio discusses the legality of President Trump’s recent national emergency declaration under the Constitution as well as under federal law.  The post is available here.

Professor Deborah A. Geier was a guest on WCPN’s “Sound of Ideas” program on Thursday, February 14, where she discussed why some taxpayers may be unhappily surprised this year when they file their Federal income tax return for 2018 and find that they owe much more than they anticipated or will receive a substantially reduced refund. You can listen to the discussion here.

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson published a Letter to the Editor in the Plain Dealer on February 5, on Toledo’s Lake Erie Bill of Rights.  The Letter is available here.

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio presented on February 2 at the CSU Alumni Reunion in Naples, Florida, on the topic of “Khashoggi Murder, International law and State Sovereignty.”

In addition, Professor Sterio presented at the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association on February 12, as part of the CMBA’s “Hot Talks” series, on the topic of “Government Shutdown and Border Wall.”