Antitrust Summary Judgment and the Quick Look Approach

Abstract

Three methodological short cuts potentially streamline antitrust litigation. The availability of the per se approach provides a time tested way to avoid conventional trials where illegality is obvious. However, the seeming collapse of per se rules in modern antitrust cases creates a need for some type of abbreviated assessment of economic impact of alleged restraints. The quick look approach provides a means for a truncated pretrial evaluation of competitive effect. At the same time, a third potential short cut, summary judgment, appears to be readily available in antitrust cases after a period of some skepticism toward its use and appears to also interject pretrial assessment of economic effect into a case. This article first describes the quick look and antitrust summary judgment, and then explores integration of the two complementary concepts. Although I find that only a few cases grant summary judgment using the quick look, I posit that these two different short cuts are capable of efficient synergy in the same case. The paper paradoxically concludes that courts appear skeptical of the quick look's vague contours and, yet, seem willing to employ summary judgment, a similar procedure.