Bedoya's Fairness Vision.pdf

Commissioner Alvaro M. Bedoya, in his prepared remarks at the Midwest Forum on Fair Markets, challenges the prevailing focus of antitrust laws on efficiency, arguing for a return to fairness, particularly for small businesses and rural communities. Key points include:

- Antitrust laws were initially driven by concerns about fairness and protecting small businesses, not just efficiency.
- The shift towards efficiency as the primary goal has led to neglect of fairness and small business protection.
- Bedoya uses the example of independent pharmacies in rural America to illustrate the impact of this shift:
- Independent pharmacies often serve as the sole medical resource in rural areas.
- A family with a child needing cancer medication was denied authorization to fill the prescription at their local pharmacy, which was part of a vertically integrated entity that profits from filling prescriptions through its own mail-order pharmacy.
- This situation resulted from a series of mergers that consolidated 39 separate companies into just three vertically integrated entities, which now control most prescription medication distribution and pricing.
- Bedoya argues that antitrust laws should consider fairness and protect small businesses, not just focus on efficiency.