Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2001
ISSN
0038-3910
Publisher
University of Southern California Gould School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
Many legal rules turn on a party's state of mind or intent with respect to some action or consequence. Legal scholars have long debated the contours of such requirements and the sorts of proof required for them. Intent has been an especially controversial issue in antitrust law. This paper provides a theory of legal standards that explains the role of intent analysis in antitrust and in other areas of the law. We argue that intent requirements, and many other legal rules, can be understood by focusing on the goal of minimizing the expected costs from legal errors. After developing a positive theory of intent standards, we apply the theory to antitrust to show that it explains both the allocation of and proof requirements for the specific intent standards in antitrust doctrine. We then use the Microsoft case as a concrete study of the function of intent rules in antitrust.
Recommended Citation
Keith N. Hylton & Ronald A. Cass,
Antitrust Intent
,
in
74
Southern California Law Review
657
(2001).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/668
Working paper available on SSRN
Comments
Updated with published version of paper on 9/23/22
Working paper available on SSRN