What this Antitrust Attorney Thinks about Bitcoin and How it Enhances Energy-Market Competition and Innovation

March 8, 2022 | Jarod Bona

I believe that Bitcoin is the enemy of tyranny and the greatest invention of the 21^st century. Its detractors tend to either not understand Bitcoin or believe that the people are best when they are controlled and manipulated.

Maybe that was a little hyperbolic? I don’t care.

The truth is that I am still learning. I am still crawling through the rabbit hole (a cliché, but one often used in this area) and I recommend that you do the same. The more I learn, the more excited I get about Bitcoin and what it means for our future.

As someone who has made the study of and interaction with competition his career, it is fun to watch a superior competitor to government fiat currency develop.

We had (and still have) gold, but that has its limitations: Mostly, dividing and carrying it.

Blockchain v. Bitcoin

First, an important clarification: The incredible blockchain technology developed from Bitcoin, but many cryptocurrencies now utilize this technology for themselves. And NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are becoming a big deal in certain circles; they utilize blockchains like Ethereum. Bitcoin is on a blockchain, but there are other blockchains out there and other currencies and applications that utilize these blockchains.

To really get it, you must understand the distinction between Bitcoin and everything else that might appear on a blockchain. The blockchain technology is exciting and there are use cases that people are testing all over the world. And others that we can’t even contemplate yet. But there is only one Bitcoin and it is different in kind from everything else. You should read the original Bitcoin white paper by Satashi Nakamoto here to learn more.

The Limited Supply of Bitcoin

Among other more complex reasons, Bitcoin is different because it is programmed such that the number of Bitcoin will never exceed 21 million (and it won’t even reach 21 million for a long time). As far as money is concerned, it is harder than gold (even though it isn’t physical). And there isn’t a central authority (i.e. a Central Bank or any other entity) that can add inflation or otherwise screw around with it.

Go ahead, read that last paragraph again. And try to comprehend how big of a deal this is.

Currencies (even government fiat) work by supply and demand and you would be shocked if you discovered how many new dollars are introduced into the world each year, especially the last couple years. Go ahead and look it up. And it is much more than just the actual cash-money printer. It is Congress and the President adding more debt and the Federal Reserve “stimulating” the economy. Even simple bank loans increase the money supply. Anyway, poke around the internet about this to add a new anxiety to your life.

You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in Economics to understand that dramatically increasing the supply of something can negatively affect its value. And that’s just as true with dollars and other fiat currencies.

Did you know that “Mo Money Mo Problems” by The Notorious B.I.G. is really a ballad about the ravages of increases in the money supply?

Well, I made that up. But it would be a great title for what’s happened with fiat currency.

Network Effects

If you follow antitrust issues, you are now undoubtedly familiar with network effects. There are certain products, services, or platforms (even currencies) that become more valuable to each user, the more users participate. So, for example, if you are building a platform business, the more sellers on your platform, the more useful your platform will be to buyers, and vice-versa. This is one reason why you see so many new platform tech companies burning through money, charging customers as little as possible, sometimes nothing. The game is to win the market, at whatever cost. Then you can start to really monetize. Social media, of course, works the same way. People want to be where others are.

Anyway, Bitcoin also benefits from network effects. As more people use it as a store of value, the more valuable it becomes as a store of value. And while Bitcoin is also a medium of exchange, I think that its current role is much more of a store of value because it is still quite volatile and, frankly, those that understand it don’t really want to spend it as the value has consistently increased—sometimes dramatically—during this current adoption phase (which may continue for years).

Bitcoin as a Censorship-Resistant Medium of Exchange

As a medium of exchange, however, there is a second layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain called the Lightening Network that makes it even easier for users to exchange bitcoin. And if you go to El Salvador (which has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender), you can utilize the lightening network, through an app, to purchase a McDonald’s Cheeseburger with bitcoin.

In addition, we are beginning to see people take all or parts of their salaries in bitcoin including the mayors of New York City and Miami. A company called Strike allows you to set up a direct deposit of your paycheck in part or in full in bitcoin. And as the government money printing starts to show up even in the official government inflation numbers, more and more people are looking for protection from the currency devaluation, which seems to have no end in sight. Bitcoin offers one possible solution, with its inherently limited supply that no person or entity can change.

Bitcoin (and Ethereum) have also literally saved lives by providing money for people in Ukraine when banks and ATMs weren’t available. And the government of Ukraine has taken in millions of dollars of donations in these cryptocurrencies. This isn’t a surprise as The Human Rights Foundation has long utilized Bitcoin to help those facing tyranny throughout the world.

The reason that Bitcoin is the solution to those under oppression is that it is decentralized such that no government, entity, or person can cancel it or remove people from its network. In that sense, it is censorship resistant. For the antitrust fans out there, not even a group boycott can keep you from using it. This censorship-resistant feature will likely become increasingly important, including in developed countries as banishment, oddly, seems to be in fashion as a method of punishment.

Bitcoin Competes with Government-Backed Currencies like the Dollar

Like any market, there is a market for currency. And the dollar, particularly in the United States, has market power. It is, at least for now, the world’s reserve currency. The dollar still competes well against currencies from other nation-states, despite its dramatic increase in supply, in part because other countries are doing the same thing, often to a much greater extent.

But now that there is an emerging non-government-backed currency, it will be interesting to see what happens. Bitcoin is vastly superior to government currency in many ways, but it has been around for a relatively short time, so many are still skeptical (I personally am not skeptical).

Besides Bitcoin, there are other currencies that will compete with the dollar, including China’s digital currency (which comes—at no extra charge—with high-tech surveillance tools). Bitcoin may not displace the dollar, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it has a major role alongside it, as it is better than the dollar in certain ways. This includes the programmed fixed supply, alongside the fact that people can move Bitcoin across time and space more quickly and cheaply than government-backed currencies. And, of course, its censorship-resistant qualities are becoming more apparent and important on the world stage.

You might begin to see countries, including the United States, adopt their own digital currencies. But don’t be fooled: These currencies will not be censorship resistant and will always be subject to increases in their supply. They are not worthy competitors to Bitcoin and their dystopian qualities could be frightening for those that cherish freedom.

The Environmental Benefits of Bitcoin

The Bitcoin network runs on a proof-of-work system that changes energy to value that can be stored and transferred across time and space. So—like just about everything else human-created in this world—it requires energy. Those that don’t fully understand Bitcoin sometimes target the proof-of-work energy use as a reason to criticize this positive world-changing technology. You can tell what I think by the way I framed that sentence.

But what you don’t hear in these shallow articles by those that don’t truly understand Bitcoin (see, I did it again) is that Bitcoin utilizes energy in such a unique way that the environmental impact is likely to end up as a net positive. Of course, even that is unfair to Bitcoin as we don’t routinely criticize other technologies that use energy. But if you don’t understand something, you tend to fear it and look for flaws. So, I’m not surprised that the Bitcoin luddites get stuck on the energy usage.

Bitcoin mining can be done anywhere and anytime and allows those that mine to convert energy to value in the most flexible of circumstances. These features create positive consequences for energy markets and the environment.

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Can a Manufacturer Stop Price Gouging by Its Dealers During a Crisis?

March 11, 2020 | Steve Cernak

Author: Steven Cernak

Like many crisis situations, the Coronavirus Pandemic has created concerns and even outcry about price gouging for certain products.

If your company manufactures one of these products and your dealers and retailers have suddenly jacked up prices for them, what can you do?

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When is the Filed Rate Doctrine a Defense to an Antitrust Lawsuit?

January 19, 2020 | Jarod Bona

Author: Jarod Bona

The doctrine of federal antitrust law includes several immunities and exemptions—entire areas that are off limits to certain antitrust actions. This can be confusing, especially because these “exceptions” arise, grow, and shrink over time, at the seeming whim of federal courts.

As a matter of interpretation, the Supreme Court demands that courts view such exemptions and immunities narrowly, but they are still an important part of the antitrust landscape. This includes, prominently, the Filed Rate Doctrine, which is the topic of this article.

Here at The Antitrust Attorney Blog, we write about these antitrust exceptions periodically. In particular, we spend a lot of time on state-action immunity, but have also published articles on, for example, the baseball antitrust exemption, the farm cooperative exemption, and the business of insurance exception (which, unlike many others, arose from statute: The McCarran-Ferguson Act).

What is the Filed Rate Doctrine?

The filed rate doctrine is simply a judicially created exception to a civil antitrust action for damages in which plaintiffs challenge the validity of rates or tariff terms that have been filed with and approved by a federal regulatory agency.

But what does that mean?

In some industries, notably insurance, energy, and shipping (or other common carriers), the participants must file the rates that they offer to all or most customers with a government agency. This regulatory agency must then, in some manner, approve those rates. This approach is an exception to a typical market and was more common in certain industries pre-deregulation.

The idea of filing these rates is that the benevolent and all-knowing government agency, rather than the market, will best look after customers. It arises from the same seed as socialism and was particularly popular in the early to mid-20^th century when the view that educated people could perform better than markets was in vogue.

Anyway, these “filed rates” are still with us and are a defense, through the filed rate doctrine, to certain antitrust actions.

The filed rate doctrine itself arose in a 1922 US Supreme Court case called Keogh v. Chicago & Northwest Railway Co., 260 U.S. 156 (1922). In that case, the plaintiffs sought antitrust damages by arguing that defendants violated the Sherman Act and the rates charged by certain common-carrier shippers were higher than they would have been in a competitive market.

The defendants, however, had filed these rates with the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), a federal agency that had approved them. The Supreme Court responded by precluding plaintiffs’ antitrust lawsuit on that basis, as the rates, once filed, “cannot be varied or enlarged by either contract or tort of the carrier.” It is the legal rate.

The Supreme Court has since reaffirmed this holding, most prominently in a case called Square D Co. v. Niagara Frontier Tariff Bureau, Inc., 476 U.S. 409 in 1986, which you can read at the link if you want to dig deeper.

When Does the Filed Rate Doctrine Preclude Antitrust Liability?

The filed rate doctrine is a defense to an antitrust lawsuit, premised on damages, so long as the claim requires the Court to examine or second guess the rates filed with a federal agency.

So if you are a plaintiff that wants to bring an antitrust action against a defendant that filed rates, you could (1) seek certain types of injunctive relief; and (2) develop your action in a way that doesn’t require the Court to determine liability or calculate damages by comparing current filed rates to a hypothetical rate in a but-for world. This can get complicated, so if you are not an antitrust attorney, you might want to find one.

If you are or represent a defendant that has been sued under the antitrust laws and the defendant company files rates with some agency, you should also seek antitrust-specific guidance. You might have a strong defense.

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The US Supreme Court Should Affirm the Ninth Circuit in SolarCity: State-Action-Immunity Defendants Have No Right to an Immediate Appeal

December 13, 2017 | Aaron Gott

Author: Aaron Gott

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to decide a circuit split on an important procedural question concerning the state-action immunity to the federal antitrust laws: whether a decision denying the state-action immunity is immediately appealable or must await a final decision just like most issues raised on a motion to dismiss.

The case, SolarCity Corporation v. Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District, is about a power company that changed its rate structure to make it less appealing for consumers to switch to solar power. Power companies are typically quasi-natural monopolies because of the way power is delivered—through a massive infrastructure of physical lines.

Update: The parties reached a settlement and filed a stipulated dismissal dated March 20, 2018. So the US Supreme Court will not hear this case.

But new technology is changing that: people can generate electricity straight from the sun by installing panels on their roofs, and soon it will be more cost effective to install batteries to hold that power for when it is needed than to continue paying the power company. In places like Southern California, where the price of peak electricity is more than four times the national average, solar power is a no-brainer.

It comes as no surprise that some power companies are using their incumbency to slow the disruption of this innovative technology. SolarCity (now Tesla, Inc.) sued an Arizona power district for attempting to maintain its monopoly over the supply of electrical power in its territory, alleging that the power district created new fees that penalize solar customers, which ultimately had its intended effect: solar retailers received 96% fewer applications for new solar systems among customers in the power district after the new rates took effect.

The power district moved to dismiss, arguing that it is immune from the federal antitrust laws under the state-action immunity. The district court denied the motion because the power district had not met its burden of showing that it acted pursuant to a clearly articulated state policy to displace competition. The power district sought an order certifying the denial for interlocutory appeal, which was also denied. Nevertheless, the power district immediately appealed to the Ninth Circuit, arguing that a denial of the state-action immunity should be immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine.

Before we dive into the Ninth Circuit decision, let’s discuss some of these terms.

The Collateral Order Doctrine

The collateral order doctrine is an exception to the general rule that the federal courts of appeal have jurisdiction to hear only appeals of “final orders” from the district courts. The exception is narrow and must be strictly applied.

A collateral order is appealable immediately if it meets three requirements: first, the order being appealed must be conclusive. Second, it must address a question that is separate from the merits of the case. Third, it must raise “some particular value of a high order” and evade effective review if not considered immediately.

With these requirements, there are only a few categories of decisions that meet the collateral order doctrine, and they are all “immunities”: Eleventh Amendment immunity, absolute immunity, qualified immunity, foreign and tribal sovereign immunity. Given this, it might seem that the state-action “immunity” also fits. But it isn’t quite that simple because the state-action immunity isn’t actually an immunity, but a judicially recognized exemption.

What Is An Immunity?

Read broadly, an immunity could mean many different things. It could mean immunity from suit, immunity from liability, or even just immunity from money damages.

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Antitrust News: US Supreme Court Accepts Review of SolarCity Antitrust Case on State-Action Immunity and Collateral Order Doctrine

December 3, 2017 | Jarod Bona

For the third time in recent years, the US Supreme Court decided to review an antitrust case involving state-action immunity.

Unlike the first two cases, however, the primary issue in this case is procedural: The petition requesting review fairly described the issue as “Whether orders denying state-action immunity to public entities are immediately appealable under the collateral-order doctrine.”

The case at issue is a Ninth Circuit case called SolarCity Corporation v. Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District. SolarCity, of course, is now a unit of Elon Musk’s Tesla.

You can read our more complete analysis of the upcoming SolarCity case here.

Update: The parties reached a settlement and jointly dismissed the case from the US Supreme Court.

The substantive case underneath the procedural issue involves a monopolization lawsuit by SolarCity against a public entity power company in Arizona, which is the only supplier in that area of traditional electrical power.

Here is what they did: SolarCity, like other solar-energy-panel companies, was having success in selling and leasing rooftop solar panels to customers, especially in sunshine places like Arizona (and Southern California, of course). Instead of viewing the move toward solar power as good for the environment and peoples’ pocketbooks, the power company—a public entity—viewed it as a threat. And, like many government entities that view private enterprise as a threat to their budgets and influence, the power district changed the rules.

That is, the power company changed the pricing structure so customers that acquire power from their own system—a solar-panel system, for example—must pay a prohibitively large penalty. The government entity’s rule change had its intended effect: SolarCity received ninety-six percent fewer applications for new solar-panel systems in that territory.

This is, of course, one of the grossest forms of government abuse and a disgrace to competition. It is also one of the reasons why Luke Wake of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center and I argued both as an amicus in Phoebe Putney and in a law review article that the Supreme Court should adopt a market-participant exception to state-action immunity. If a government entity is a commercial participant in a market, it shouldn’t be immunized from cheating in that market.

Bona Law currently has another case pending in the Ninth Circuit in which government entities that compete in the market violated antitrust laws and are using the shield of state-action immunity to try to get away with it.

The Collateral Order Doctrine

In the SolarCity case, the trial court rejected state-action immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage. Typically, a defendant that loses a motion to dismiss cannot appeal the issues until later in the case, sometimes after trial. The plaintiff gets to take a shot at proving its case.

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