CM Law Faculty

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, spoke this week for a story in Corporate Counsel about the recent decision of Gap, Inc. to spin off it’s most successful brand, Old Navy, and to continue its Banana Republic and several other brands as a separate corporate entity.

He also spoke with the service S&P Global Market Intelligence about the news that the White House may have pressured challenge to the merger or AT&T and Time Warner, for political reasons unrelated to its legality.

Finally, he spoke with the subscription service FTC: Watch about recent set-backs in judicial decisions that will affect Federal Trade Commission enforcement actions.

Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio participated in a one-day “brain trust” workshop on March 1, on the “Legal Limits to the Use of the Veto Power,” organized by Professor Jennifer Trahan, NYU Global Justice Center, and held at the offices of Foley Hoag in New York City.  The “brain trust” was a workshop which assembled academics, state representatives (legal officers from several different countries’ United Nations’ missions), and NGO representatives, to discuss the legal limits to the use of the veto power (within the Security Council) in the face of atrocity crimes.  The morning session focused on the legal issues, whereas the afternoon session focused on various strategies necessary to persuade states to commit to limits to the use of the veto power.

Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, the Steven W. Percy Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of Environmental Studies, presented Local control in shale oil and gas decision-making: What a difference a border makes? at the 13th Annual Meeting of the International Academic Association of Planning, Law, and Property Rights, at Texas A&M University, in College Station, Texas, on February 21, 2019.

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.