Sky Blog
Our economy is dominated by five aging tech giants – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. Each of these firms was founded more than 20 years ago: Apple and Microsoft in the 1970s, Google and Amazon in the 1990s, and …
The subscription streaming market, dominated by some of the world’s most innovative companies (Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Google) is surprisingly homogenous: same products, same prices, same catalogs. At the same time, there are countless other music streaming startups that have …
The Federal Trade Commission has accused Amazon of illegally maintaining its monopoly, extracting supra-competitive fees on merchants that use Amazon’s platform. If and when the fact-finder determines that Amazon violated the antitrust laws, we propose structural remedies to address the …
Startup acquisitions by incumbent firms have been on the rise for the last few years. These acquisitions often allow larger companies to acquire new technologies or talent, while startups gain access to resources and a wider customer base. One notable …
Is big business ungovernable? Some of today’s calls to break up and intensely regulate big business do not hinge on harms to consumers as consumers, but rather on the claim that giant corporations with market power treat legal requirements as …
In December 2021, As You Sow, a non-profit foundation promoting environmental and social corporate responsibility, filed shareholder proposals on behalf of Amazon.com and Comcast Corporation shareholders for action at each of their 2022 annual meetings. The Amazon proposal and …
Recently, workers at Amazon dealt what has been called a “decisive” and “crushing” blow to organized labor,[1] with their proposed union receiving less than 30 percent of the votes cast, according to the federal vote counters overseeing the …
In a recent study, we examine whether firms structure their mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to avoid scrutiny from antitrust regulators as well as whether such deals reduce product market competition.
While M&A deals are often triggered to create value, they …
Republican and Democratic leaders have both called for greater scrutiny of the power and influence of Big Tech firms, but, unsurprisingly, they have disagreed about how to address the problem. Senator Elizabeth Warren and many other leading Democrats have called …
In recent years, there has been a proliferation of merger control rules throughout the world as well as policy changes in the field. As shown by Amazon’s experience in its recent 16% minority shareholding acquisition of the online restaurant delivery …
Following news reports about executives selling shares in their corporations to avoid losses due to the pandemic, we take a closer look at insider trades and find that net insider purchases have been positive in February and March, revealing corporate …
An important debate has emerged in the United States about how business should encapsulate more fully the sustainability-conscious management paradigm. At issue is the proper role of business in society, and the trend is to consider more than just shareholder …
One of today’s most pressing antitrust questions is how antitrust should address the conduct of dominant technology companies, such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Once heralded as the champions of innovation and the modern economy, these companies are now the …
It is widely accepted among investors that compensation committees should align executive pay with performance in part by using incentive metrics that contribute directly to shareholder value. For this reason, it is common for incentive metrics to overlap with performance …
A federal court recently held that there was no antitrust problem with AT&T purchasing Time Warner for $86 billion. In the judge’s view, this consolidation didn’t offend the merger law as it now is interpreted. Nor could many far-larger transactions …
While there is a growing debate in the United States about a shift from public equity markets to private ownership models, Asian stock exchanges are steaming ahead. Last year a record 1,074 companies got listed in the region, and 43 …
Identity is fundamental in finance. At a time when huge TechFins like Amazon are making inroads into the financial services industry, major questions are arising as to the most effective methods of customer identification and meeting Know Your Customer obligations …