Top Experts, Government Officials, and Scholars to Discuss Antitrust Issues
New York, June 1, 2012—Columbia Law School and the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law have teamed up to co-sponsor a conference that will explore the importance of the financial services sector to competition, and the growing importance of competition and consumer protection law to financial services. The June 7 event brings together current and former government officials, as well as leading antitrust attorneys and scholars, to debate and dissect the role of competition and consumer protection in financial services as the industry enters a new stage.
The event will be co-chaired by Columbia Law School’s Harvey J. Goldschmid ’65, Dwight Professor of Law, and former commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission along with James Wilson, a former chair of the ABA Section of Antitrust Law. Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker Jr. will deliver the keynote address.
The economic crisis has underscored some of the critical questions speakers will address: Should the rules of competition be different for financial institutions? Should mergers among financial institutions be subject to greater or fewer limitations? Are antitrust laws being adequately enforced for arrangements among financial firms? How can the various protections for consumers of financial products be reconciled and managed?
Panels will focus on: the role of competition in the financial sector in a Dodd-Frank era; mergers in the banking industry and the extent to which size matters; consumer protection in the financial sector and its implications for competition; and the effectiveness of antitrust enforcement in the financial sector.
The anchors for each discussion will be provided by Professor C. Scott Hemphill, who is on leave from the Law School while he serves as chief of the Antitrust Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s Office; F.M. Scherer of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; Federal Trade Commissioner Julie S. Brill; and Lawrence J. White of NYU’s Stern School of Business. They will be joined by Thomas Baxter, general counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Joseph F. Wayland ’83, acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice; and a host of leading experts.
This symposium promises to be singularly informative and thought-provoking for those interested in antitrust law, consumer protection, financial services, and what happens when they meet. Click here for more information.
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The ABA Section of Antitrust Law is the leading professional organization for those interested in the fields of antitrust and competition law, trade regulation, consumer protection, and economics. Its more than 8,000 members include lawyers and nonlawyers from private law firms, in-house counsel, nonprofit organizations, consulting firms, federal and state government agencies, as well as judges, professors, and law students.
With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the world’s largest voluntary professional membership organization. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.