R. Mark McCareins is a Clinical Professor of Business Law in the Strategy Department where he teaches courses on Antitrust and Competition, Business Law and Non-Profit Governance and Organization. Mark is also Co-Director of the JD/MBA program at Kellogg. Mark received a Student Impact Award for his teaching of Business Law in the fall quarter of 2016.
While Mark has been instructing at Kellogg for about thirty years, he also practiced law as a senior partner in the international law firm of Winston and Strawn LLP for thirty-three years, retiring effective February 1, 2014. At Winston, Mark was co-chair of the firm's global competition practice and served in a number of management positions within the firm and the litigation department. Mark's trial practice concentrated on antitrust, intellectual property and unfair competition issues. He tried cases and supervised commercial litigation for clients in nearly forty federal district and appellate courts. These clients were diverse and ranged from pharmaceutical (Abbott Labs) to consumer products (Tropicana Beverages). Through 2014, Mark was ranked as one of the leading antitrust and commercial litigation lawyers in Illinois, the United States and globally in such publications as SuperLawyers, Legal 500, Chambers Guide to Leading Lawyers and Best Lawyers in America. Mark is a member of both the Illinois and California bars. Mark currently serves as the General Counsel of North America's premier metals trade association, the Metals Service Center Institute (www.msci.org).
Mark has authored or edited approximately forty articles or books on antitrust, competition and intellectual property matters. He served in many leadership positions in the antitrust section of the American Bar Association. He curently is an ex officio member of the antitrust Section Council of the Illinois State Bar Association, having formerly served as Chair of that Section. In addition, Mark is also a former Chair of the Antitrust Committee of the Chicago Bar Association, where he moderated panels on such topics as the corporate criminal leniency program and the use of experts in antitrust cases. He received a Service Award from the Chicago Bar Association in June, 2017 for his role as chair of the Antitrust Law committee. Mark is also a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.
Mark is also very active in community affairs having served as President and Chairman of the Board of Lawrence Hall Youth Services, a Chicago based child welfare agency, through June, 2017 at which time Mark was elected as a Life Trustee. He also sits on the Board of Catholic Charities. Mark is also involved in a number of alumni groups at Washington University including sitting on the Chicago Regional Cabinet and the Law School's national alumni council. Mark has received distinguished alumnus awards from both his undergraduate alma mater Northwestern University as well as Washington University where he served as Editor in Chief of the law school's Law Review. He also received the President's Volunteer Service Award from the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation in 2008.
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Antitrust, unfair competition, intellectual property and commercial litigation
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Business and Anti-trust Law
Firms (whether they be brick and mortar or web based) employ any number of approaches to enhance market share or generate sales. However, for many of those strategies, there is a legal component as to their implementation or execution. For example, with respect to pricing decisions, there are various competition regulations (e.g. price discrimination, below cost sales, resale price maintenance ( and MAP)), that need to be addressed in order to devise a compliant pricing strategy. This course will explore the propriety of at least ten (10) different competitive strategies while providing the student with an opportunity to insure proper compliance with applicable state/federal and often international competition and trade regulation laws. While antitrust enforcement "policy" will be discussed ( a good example is how the current wave of "vertical mergers" will be evaluated), the principal focus of the course is to explain and address the frameworks that are utilized by courts and enforcement agencies to determine the legality of the competitive conduct at issue.
Although domestic U.S. competition laws will be featured, the course will delve into the application of certain state (e.g. dealer/franchise) and international ( e.g. merger filings, cartel enforcement) competition requirements. One week of the course will be devoted to the criminal ramifications of certain types of conduct; the remaining weeks will cover the civil consequences and ramifications of hatching a strategy that is not mindful of the appropriate legal guidelines. Examples of the strategies that will be evaluated include: - Growth by acquisition or merger (e.g. corresponding Hart-Scott-Rodino filing requirements and their international counter-parts); - "Cooperative efforts" with direct, horizontal competitors (and under what circumstances those "cooperative efforts" can be found illegal conspiracies to restrain trade); - Exclusionary, non-price conduct aimed at competitors; - What is "dominance" and how is it regulated? - Predatory or below-cost pricing; - Non-price, vertical restraints imposed by suppliers or manufacturers on resellers (e.g. territorial limitations, exclusive dealing); - Vertical, price restraints (e.g. resale price maintenance or MAP (minimum advertised price) policies); - Dealer relations including franchise laws; - Price discrimination practiced by sellers against buyers under the Robinson Patman Act; - Use of intellectual property (e.g. patent misuse) to extend or maintain market positions, (e.g. branded against generic pharma). Individual case and secondary readings will be used each week to highlight the various issues discussed above.