The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) and Cohen Milstein announce outstanding contributions to antitrust scholarship.
In recognition of their outstanding contribution to antitrust scholarship, the authors listed below have been selected as recipients of the 24th Annual Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Fund Writing Award:
- Mark A. Lemley, William H. Neukom Professor, Stanford Law School
- Rory Van Loo, Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics, The Wharton School
- Lane Miles, J.D. 2025, Stanford Law School
The award will be presented during the gala luncheon at AAI’s 27th Annual Policy Conference on June 4, 2026 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Professor Lemley, Professor Van Loo, and Mr. Miles will be honored for their article:
“Anticompetitive Directors,” 125 Colum. L. Rev. 1939 (2025). The authors demonstrate that large numbers of companies are directly violating the antitrust laws prohibiting competing corporations from sharing board members. The authors provide the first analysis of board members on both public and private companies—rather than just public companies—and find 2,309 instances of individuals sitting on the boards of two companies that are direct competitors. And they show why the problem of interlocking boards is more concerning than previously realized: (1) many interlocking board members are controlled by investors with strong financial incentives to promote anticompetitive conduct in the industry, (2) investment funds themselves identify the relevant companies as competitors, and (3) the problem of interlocking boards extends well beyond individual directors serving on competitors’ boards because the practice of investors having two or more employees serving on competitors’ boards is widespread throughout the economy. The article meaningfully advances our understanding of the extent of the problem of and harm caused by interlocking board members, and proposes legal and structural reforms to fix the problem.
Professor Lemley, Professor Van Loo, and Mr. Miles will receive a $15,000 prize and a specially commissioned and inscribed artwork by Lori Milstein, artist and daughter of Herb Milstein, co-founder of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
In addition, this year’s award selection committee conferred nine category awards recognizing numerous other outstanding contributions to antitrust scholarship in 2025:
- Best Antitrust Publication of 2025 on the Clayton Act: Robert H. Lande, John M. Newman, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, “The Forgotten Anti-Monopoly Law: The Second Half of Clayton Act Section 7,” 103 Tex. L. Rev. 785 (2025)
- Best Publication of 2025 on Antitrust and Contract Law: William Friedman, “Are Anticompetitive Contracts Enforceable? The Illegality Defense and Modern Anticompetitive Contracts,” 110 Cornell L. Rev. 335 (2025)
- Best Publication of 2025 on Antitrust and Patent Law: Talha Syed, “Does Pharma Need Patents?,” 134 Yale L.J. 2038 (2025)
- Best Antitrust Publication of 2025 on Collusion: Amanda Starc, Thomas G. Wollmann, “Does Entry Remedy Collusion?,” 115 Am. Econ. Rev. 1400 (2025)
- Best Publication of 2025 on Antitrust in Regulated Industries: Erika M. Douglas, “Antitrust Abandonment,” 42 Yale J. on Reg. 1 (2025)
- Best Publication of 2025 on Merger Retrospectives: Germain Gaudin, Niklas Nagel, “Merger of Complements: Empirical Evidence from the Eyewear Industry,” 103 Int’l J. Indus. Org. 103114 (2025)
- Best Publication of 2025 on Unilateral Effects in Merger Analysis: Peter Caradonna, Nathan H. Miller, Gloria Sheu, “Mergers, Entry, and Consumer Welfare,” 17 Am. Econ. J.: Microeconomics 103 (2025)
- Best Antitrust Publication of 2025 on Remedies: Francesco Decarolis, Muxin Li, Filippo Paternollo, “Competition and Defaults in Online Search,” 17 Am. Econ. J.: Microeconomics 369 (2025)
- Best Antitrust Student Publication of 2025: Joshua L. Rojas, “Forcing Divestiture Dynamics: Solving the Cartel Conundrum by Structural Remedy,” 92 Tenn. L. Rev. 933 (2025)
This year’s award selection committee consisted of Aslihan Asil, Assistant Professor at Duke University School of Law; Zachary Caplan, Shareholder at Berger Montague; Warren Grimes, Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School; John Kirkwood, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law; Roger Noll, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Stanford University; Leslie Marx, Professor of Economics at Duke Fuqua School of Business; Robert Lande, Emeritus Professor of Law at University of Baltimore School of Law; Daniel H. Silverman, Partner at Cohen Milstein; and Daniel A. Small, Of Counsel at Cohen Milstein.
About the Award
The Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Fund Writing Award was created through a trust established in memory of Jerry S. Cohen, an outstanding trial lawyer and antitrust scholar. The award is administered by the law firm he founded, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
The award honors the best antitrust writing published during the prior year that is consistent with the values that animated Jerry S. Cohen’s professional life — a genuine concern for economic justice, the dispersal of economic power, effective limitations upon economic power, and the vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws.
About Cohen Milstein
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, a premier U.S. plaintiffs’ law firm, with over 100 attorneys across eight offices, champions the causes of real people – workers, consumers, small business owners, investors, and whistleblowers – working to deliver corporate reforms and fair markets for the common good. For more information, visit www.cohenmilstein.com or call (202) 408-4600.
About the American Antitrust Institute
The American Antitrust Institute (AAI) is an independent, nonprofit organization devoted to promoting competition that protects consumers, businesses, and society. AAI serves the public through research, education, and advocacy on the benefits of competition and the use of antitrust enforcement as a vital component of national and international competition policy. For more information, visit www.antitrustinstitute.org or call (202) 828-1226.
