The Case for Employing Hybrid Welfare Standards in Antitrust Matters

By Schonette J. Walker

The Consumer Welfare Standard (“CWS”) is the main analytical framework employed in current antitrust analysis. CWS places the consumer and the consumer’s welfare, in the form of lower prices, higher product quality and output, at the center of antitrust consideration. Sometimes however, consumer concerns on their face do not predominate. When that happens antitrust should focus on more than consumer advantages and consider combining different priorities to create hybrid forms of antitrust analysis.