The chapters in this document are displayed in reversed order, with the last chapter appearing first.
This change ensures all chapters are included in the Solutions Manual. Chap 1 to 24 Included
Solution and Answer Guide: Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e, 9798214046105;
Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
Solution and Answer Guide
Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e,
9798214046105; Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Critical Thinking Questions in Features .............................................................................. 1
Landmark in the Law—Application to Today’s Legal Environment .................................. 1
Adapting the Law to the Online Environment—Critical Thinking ..................................... 2
Ethical Issue—Value Judgment................................................................................................ 2
Critical Thinking Questions in Cases .................................................................................. 3
Case 24.1—Critical Thinking ...................................................................................................... 3
Case 24.2—Critical Thinking ..................................................................................................... 4
Case 24.3—Critical Thinking ..................................................................................................... 5
Chapter Review .................................................................................................................... 6
Practice and Review.................................................................................................................... 6
Practice and Review: Debate This ........................................................................................... 7
Issue Spotters .............................................................................................................................. 7
Business Scenarios and Case Problems................................................................................. 8
A Question of Ethics ..................................................................................................................12
Time-Limited Team Assignment ............................................................................................ 14
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS IN FEATURES
LANDMARK IN THE LAW—APPLICATION TO TODAY’S LEGAL ENVIRONMENT
1. The U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general investigate many complaints
and prosecute a number of corporations for Sherman Act violations each year. How would
the principles of this law motivate a state attorney general to block a merger between two
large supermarket chains?
Solution: A state attorney general who blocked the merger of two large supermarket
chains would be doing so to prevent a potential monopoly. As rivals, the two
companies are incentivized to seek competitive advantages against each other by
lowering prices or improving services or taking some other steps that benefit
consumers. If the chains join forces, they will no longer be in competition and will
© 2026 1
,Solution and Answer Guide: Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e, 9798214046105;
Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
therefore have less incentive to offer those benefits. According to the principles of the
Sherman Antitrust Act, consumers will ultimately suffer from this lack of competition.
Washington State’s attorney general voiced similar concerns when he filed suit to
block a merger between Kroger and Albertsons, two of the largest supermarket chains
in the United States. If the merger was allowed to proceed, the state attorney general
contended, the combined Kroger-Albertsons would “enjoy a near monopoly” in many
parts of the state. Executives of the two supermarket chains countered that their
merger was necessary to compete with nontraditional rival food-sellers such as
Amazon, Costco, and Walmart.
ADAPTING THE LAW TO THE ONLINE ENVIRONMENT—CRITICAL THINKING
1. Given that consumers seem to benefit from the free or low-cost services provided by Big
Tech, should these companies have limits placed on them by federal antitrust regulators?
Explain your answer.
Solution: The arguments against taking drastic antitrust measures against companies
such as Apple, Amazon, Meta (Facebook), and Google are fairly straightforward. Not
only have these companies innovated at a historic pace over the past several decades,
but they have also created products and services that are highly valued by consumers.
Additionally, these products and services are often free or offered at dramatically
lower costs than was the case previously. Therefore, Big Tech should be celebrated for
developing such a successful business model rather than punished as a threat to
American consumers.
The counterargument, as detailed in the feature, focuses on competition. So, when
Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were three distinct entities, they were forced to
compete with each other, which stimulated innovation, benefitting the consumer. Also,
though it is not always evident, market concentration limits consumer choice. For
example, Tile is a small company that makes Bluetooth trackers that help users find
lost items such as wallets, keys, or smartphones. To function, the tracker needs to be
paired with an app. Like almost every app developer, Tile needs to sell its product
through the popular Apple App Store. Tile also needs to be able to pair its product
with Apple’s iPhone, which dominates the smartphone market.
Apple, however, has its own “Find My” tracking app, which comes preloaded, at no
cost, on Apple devices and cannot be deleted. By owning the platform—the Apple App
Store—and stocking it with its own products, Apple is in an enviable situation when it
comes to competitors such as Tile. In the words of one Tile executive, Apple is like a
sports team that owns the ball, the field, the stadium, and the league and can change
the rules whenever it pleases.
ETHICAL ISSUE—VALUE JUDGMENT
1. If you were a business owner, would you consider dynamic pricing for your goods or
services? Why or why not?
Solution: Wendy’s experience with dynamic pricing highlights one reason that a
business would reject using it: negative publicity. For many consumers, demand-driven
pricing just does not seem fair. From time to time, Uber and Lyft have had to defend
© 2026 2
,Solution and Answer Guide: Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e, 9798214046105;
Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
themselves against charges of obvious price gouging. In one instance, for example, the
rideshare companies’ fares rose dramatically in the immediate vicinity of a subway
shooting in Brooklyn, New York. Retailers have also been harshly criticized for raising
the prices of necessities in areas affected by natural disasters such as hurricanes.
On the positive side, dynamic pricing maximizes a business’ revenue by permitting it to
charge higher prices during times of high demand and lower prices during times of low
demand. Extreme examples aside, dynamic pricing also appears to benefit consumers
in some circumstances. With Uber, for example, a surge in prices during rush hours
incentivizes more drivers onto the road to take advantage of higher pay. This, in turn,
reduces wait times for passengers (who are willing to pay the higher prices) during
busy periods. Furthermore, airlines and hotels don’t only raise their prices during peak
travel periods. Businesses in these industries also lower their prices during the “off
season,” giving budget travelers opportunities that might not otherwise exist.
Indeed, Wendy’s did not disavow dynamic pricing when responding to criticism of its
alleged “price gouging.” Instead, the company promised to offer discounted prices at
“slower times of the day.” This strategy of making goods and services cheaper when
demand is low to attract more customers is commonplace. Lots of bars and
restaurants, for example, offer reduced prices at “happy hour” or during the “early bird
special.” Movie theaters offer matinee discounts, trains have “peak” and “off-peak”
fares, and, as already mentioned, airline tickets cost less when air traffic slows.
Dynamic pricing opportunities will only increase as artificial intelligence algorithms
emerge to track factors such as competitors’ prices, real-time supply and demand,
and the locations of potential consumers due to special events, time of day, and the
weather. Businesses using this strategy need to be aware, then, that as much as
consumers appreciate discounted low-demand prices, they instinctively mistrust
“surged” high-demand prices. To counteract this suspicion, companies must be
transparent about how they use dynamic pricing and why they are doing so.
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS IN CASES
CASE 24.1—CRITICAL THINKING
1. Legal Environment. Could the defendants have successfully argued that their agreement
to rig bids and allocate the market for public school bus transportation was reasonable, or
that it could be justified on an economic or business basis? Explain.
Solution: No, the defendants in this case could not have argued successfully that their
conspiracy was reasonable or justifiable on an economic or business basis.
The defendants’ scheme involved deciding which company would submit the low bid
for a given route. This conspiracy led to specific charges of bid rigging and market
allocation. Bid rigging is a form of price fixing. Both price fixing and market allocation
are per se violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, considered so blatantly
anticompetitive as to be inherently illegal. In fact, a bid-rigging scheme is sometimes
thought to be more harmful than ordinary price fixing because it is easier for the
participants to enforce against each other.
© 2026 3
, Solution and Answer Guide: Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e, 9798214046105;
Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
To convict on those charges, a jury is not required to assess whether the defendants’
conduct is somehow reasonable, justifiable, or cost-effective. Evidence of the
supposed reasonableness of the conduct is arguably not even relevant. It would thus
be within a court’s discretion to exclude any evidence that, in this case, for example,
the defendants’ activity might not have cost the municipality much money.
2. Economic. Following the discovery of the bid-rigging scheme, Caguas held a presumably
fair auction to award new school bus transportation contracts. Could the bids in the
second auction provide a basis for determining the restitution amounts? Discuss.
Solution: Yes, the bids in the second, presumably fair, auction could provide a basis for
setting the amounts of restitution that the defendants were ordered to pay.
Of course, the amount of restitution for an offense must be based on an actual loss,
not, for example, on a defendant’s gain due to the offense. The amount must have a
rational basis, but it does not have to be absolutely precise.
In this case, the ostensibly fair prices paid after the second auction are an appropriate
benchmark. Market conditions would have been similar, given the short time between
the rigged and fair auctions, assuming there were no intervening events to alter the
supply or demand for bus services. The routes and the numbers of students were not
likely to have been materially different. The court could reasonably presume that the
two auctions were for approximately the same services in the same market.
CASE 24.2—CRITICAL THINKING
1. Economic. What would be a fair and practical way to compensate those Washington
consumers who had paid too much for packaged tuna because of the price-fixing
conspiracy?
Solution: Washington State law authorizes the attorney general to bring antitrust
enforcement actions “in the name of the state, or as parens patriae on behalf of
persons residing in the state.” (Parens patriae is Latin for “parent of the homeland [or
country]” and is a legal term implying that a court or governmental office acts on
behalf of citizens.) This gives the attorney general not only the authority to bring
lawsuits such as the one in the StarKist case but also the responsibility of determining
how the damages should be distributed.
Here, Chicken of the Sea paid the state $500,000, and Bumble Bee’s former CEO paid
the state $100,000. Instead of going through another trial, StarKist decided to settle
for $4.1 million, with its parent company Dongwon Industries also paying a penalty of
$450,000.
How to best apportion this approximately $5.1 million? Clearly, it would be unrealistic
for every consumer who purchased a StarKist, Chicken of the Sea, or Bumble Bee tuna
product to produce a receipt covering the relevant time period. So, Washington State
Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who was preparing to run for governor, decided to
split the amount among all Washington households at or below 175 percent of the
federal poverty level. Examples of those who received checks from the state, whether
they had purchased any overpriced tuna products or not, included a family of five with
an annual household income of less than $61,495, a single parent with three children
living on an income of $52,500 or less a year, a single parent with two children making
© 2026 4
This change ensures all chapters are included in the Solutions Manual. Chap 1 to 24 Included
Solution and Answer Guide: Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e, 9798214046105;
Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
Solution and Answer Guide
Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e,
9798214046105; Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Critical Thinking Questions in Features .............................................................................. 1
Landmark in the Law—Application to Today’s Legal Environment .................................. 1
Adapting the Law to the Online Environment—Critical Thinking ..................................... 2
Ethical Issue—Value Judgment................................................................................................ 2
Critical Thinking Questions in Cases .................................................................................. 3
Case 24.1—Critical Thinking ...................................................................................................... 3
Case 24.2—Critical Thinking ..................................................................................................... 4
Case 24.3—Critical Thinking ..................................................................................................... 5
Chapter Review .................................................................................................................... 6
Practice and Review.................................................................................................................... 6
Practice and Review: Debate This ........................................................................................... 7
Issue Spotters .............................................................................................................................. 7
Business Scenarios and Case Problems................................................................................. 8
A Question of Ethics ..................................................................................................................12
Time-Limited Team Assignment ............................................................................................ 14
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS IN FEATURES
LANDMARK IN THE LAW—APPLICATION TO TODAY’S LEGAL ENVIRONMENT
1. The U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general investigate many complaints
and prosecute a number of corporations for Sherman Act violations each year. How would
the principles of this law motivate a state attorney general to block a merger between two
large supermarket chains?
Solution: A state attorney general who blocked the merger of two large supermarket
chains would be doing so to prevent a potential monopoly. As rivals, the two
companies are incentivized to seek competitive advantages against each other by
lowering prices or improving services or taking some other steps that benefit
consumers. If the chains join forces, they will no longer be in competition and will
© 2026 1
,Solution and Answer Guide: Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e, 9798214046105;
Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
therefore have less incentive to offer those benefits. According to the principles of the
Sherman Antitrust Act, consumers will ultimately suffer from this lack of competition.
Washington State’s attorney general voiced similar concerns when he filed suit to
block a merger between Kroger and Albertsons, two of the largest supermarket chains
in the United States. If the merger was allowed to proceed, the state attorney general
contended, the combined Kroger-Albertsons would “enjoy a near monopoly” in many
parts of the state. Executives of the two supermarket chains countered that their
merger was necessary to compete with nontraditional rival food-sellers such as
Amazon, Costco, and Walmart.
ADAPTING THE LAW TO THE ONLINE ENVIRONMENT—CRITICAL THINKING
1. Given that consumers seem to benefit from the free or low-cost services provided by Big
Tech, should these companies have limits placed on them by federal antitrust regulators?
Explain your answer.
Solution: The arguments against taking drastic antitrust measures against companies
such as Apple, Amazon, Meta (Facebook), and Google are fairly straightforward. Not
only have these companies innovated at a historic pace over the past several decades,
but they have also created products and services that are highly valued by consumers.
Additionally, these products and services are often free or offered at dramatically
lower costs than was the case previously. Therefore, Big Tech should be celebrated for
developing such a successful business model rather than punished as a threat to
American consumers.
The counterargument, as detailed in the feature, focuses on competition. So, when
Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were three distinct entities, they were forced to
compete with each other, which stimulated innovation, benefitting the consumer. Also,
though it is not always evident, market concentration limits consumer choice. For
example, Tile is a small company that makes Bluetooth trackers that help users find
lost items such as wallets, keys, or smartphones. To function, the tracker needs to be
paired with an app. Like almost every app developer, Tile needs to sell its product
through the popular Apple App Store. Tile also needs to be able to pair its product
with Apple’s iPhone, which dominates the smartphone market.
Apple, however, has its own “Find My” tracking app, which comes preloaded, at no
cost, on Apple devices and cannot be deleted. By owning the platform—the Apple App
Store—and stocking it with its own products, Apple is in an enviable situation when it
comes to competitors such as Tile. In the words of one Tile executive, Apple is like a
sports team that owns the ball, the field, the stadium, and the league and can change
the rules whenever it pleases.
ETHICAL ISSUE—VALUE JUDGMENT
1. If you were a business owner, would you consider dynamic pricing for your goods or
services? Why or why not?
Solution: Wendy’s experience with dynamic pricing highlights one reason that a
business would reject using it: negative publicity. For many consumers, demand-driven
pricing just does not seem fair. From time to time, Uber and Lyft have had to defend
© 2026 2
,Solution and Answer Guide: Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e, 9798214046105;
Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
themselves against charges of obvious price gouging. In one instance, for example, the
rideshare companies’ fares rose dramatically in the immediate vicinity of a subway
shooting in Brooklyn, New York. Retailers have also been harshly criticized for raising
the prices of necessities in areas affected by natural disasters such as hurricanes.
On the positive side, dynamic pricing maximizes a business’ revenue by permitting it to
charge higher prices during times of high demand and lower prices during times of low
demand. Extreme examples aside, dynamic pricing also appears to benefit consumers
in some circumstances. With Uber, for example, a surge in prices during rush hours
incentivizes more drivers onto the road to take advantage of higher pay. This, in turn,
reduces wait times for passengers (who are willing to pay the higher prices) during
busy periods. Furthermore, airlines and hotels don’t only raise their prices during peak
travel periods. Businesses in these industries also lower their prices during the “off
season,” giving budget travelers opportunities that might not otherwise exist.
Indeed, Wendy’s did not disavow dynamic pricing when responding to criticism of its
alleged “price gouging.” Instead, the company promised to offer discounted prices at
“slower times of the day.” This strategy of making goods and services cheaper when
demand is low to attract more customers is commonplace. Lots of bars and
restaurants, for example, offer reduced prices at “happy hour” or during the “early bird
special.” Movie theaters offer matinee discounts, trains have “peak” and “off-peak”
fares, and, as already mentioned, airline tickets cost less when air traffic slows.
Dynamic pricing opportunities will only increase as artificial intelligence algorithms
emerge to track factors such as competitors’ prices, real-time supply and demand,
and the locations of potential consumers due to special events, time of day, and the
weather. Businesses using this strategy need to be aware, then, that as much as
consumers appreciate discounted low-demand prices, they instinctively mistrust
“surged” high-demand prices. To counteract this suspicion, companies must be
transparent about how they use dynamic pricing and why they are doing so.
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS IN CASES
CASE 24.1—CRITICAL THINKING
1. Legal Environment. Could the defendants have successfully argued that their agreement
to rig bids and allocate the market for public school bus transportation was reasonable, or
that it could be justified on an economic or business basis? Explain.
Solution: No, the defendants in this case could not have argued successfully that their
conspiracy was reasonable or justifiable on an economic or business basis.
The defendants’ scheme involved deciding which company would submit the low bid
for a given route. This conspiracy led to specific charges of bid rigging and market
allocation. Bid rigging is a form of price fixing. Both price fixing and market allocation
are per se violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, considered so blatantly
anticompetitive as to be inherently illegal. In fact, a bid-rigging scheme is sometimes
thought to be more harmful than ordinary price fixing because it is easier for the
participants to enforce against each other.
© 2026 3
, Solution and Answer Guide: Miller, The Legal Environment Today - Building Skills You Will Need Tomorrow, 11e, 9798214046105;
Chapter 24: Antitrust Law and Promoting Competition
To convict on those charges, a jury is not required to assess whether the defendants’
conduct is somehow reasonable, justifiable, or cost-effective. Evidence of the
supposed reasonableness of the conduct is arguably not even relevant. It would thus
be within a court’s discretion to exclude any evidence that, in this case, for example,
the defendants’ activity might not have cost the municipality much money.
2. Economic. Following the discovery of the bid-rigging scheme, Caguas held a presumably
fair auction to award new school bus transportation contracts. Could the bids in the
second auction provide a basis for determining the restitution amounts? Discuss.
Solution: Yes, the bids in the second, presumably fair, auction could provide a basis for
setting the amounts of restitution that the defendants were ordered to pay.
Of course, the amount of restitution for an offense must be based on an actual loss,
not, for example, on a defendant’s gain due to the offense. The amount must have a
rational basis, but it does not have to be absolutely precise.
In this case, the ostensibly fair prices paid after the second auction are an appropriate
benchmark. Market conditions would have been similar, given the short time between
the rigged and fair auctions, assuming there were no intervening events to alter the
supply or demand for bus services. The routes and the numbers of students were not
likely to have been materially different. The court could reasonably presume that the
two auctions were for approximately the same services in the same market.
CASE 24.2—CRITICAL THINKING
1. Economic. What would be a fair and practical way to compensate those Washington
consumers who had paid too much for packaged tuna because of the price-fixing
conspiracy?
Solution: Washington State law authorizes the attorney general to bring antitrust
enforcement actions “in the name of the state, or as parens patriae on behalf of
persons residing in the state.” (Parens patriae is Latin for “parent of the homeland [or
country]” and is a legal term implying that a court or governmental office acts on
behalf of citizens.) This gives the attorney general not only the authority to bring
lawsuits such as the one in the StarKist case but also the responsibility of determining
how the damages should be distributed.
Here, Chicken of the Sea paid the state $500,000, and Bumble Bee’s former CEO paid
the state $100,000. Instead of going through another trial, StarKist decided to settle
for $4.1 million, with its parent company Dongwon Industries also paying a penalty of
$450,000.
How to best apportion this approximately $5.1 million? Clearly, it would be unrealistic
for every consumer who purchased a StarKist, Chicken of the Sea, or Bumble Bee tuna
product to produce a receipt covering the relevant time period. So, Washington State
Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who was preparing to run for governor, decided to
split the amount among all Washington households at or below 175 percent of the
federal poverty level. Examples of those who received checks from the state, whether
they had purchased any overpriced tuna products or not, included a family of five with
an annual household income of less than $61,495, a single parent with three children
living on an income of $52,500 or less a year, a single parent with two children making
© 2026 4
