EI News and Notes

Technology Royalty Rates

Thomas R. Varner, an EI Vice President, published a paper in the September 2010 issue of les Nouvelles (the Journal of the Licensing Executives Society International). The paper, “Technology Royalty Rates in SEC Filings,” presents findings from his research on royalty rates collected from thousands of technology licenses disclosed to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission from 1994 to 2009. This unique dataset collected by Dr. Varner includes a large number of agreements he obtained in unredacted form under the Freedom of Information Act.

Mirant Corporation and RRI Energy Inc. Merge to Form GenOn Energy

The Department of Justice has closed its investigation of the merger of Mirant Corporation and RRI Energy. EI Principal John R. Morris assisted in the antitrust defense of this merger. Dr. Morris has consulted on several merger filings at the Department of Justice, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other agencies. In this matter, he was assisted by EI Senior Vice President Richard Shin and EI Senior Economists Lona Fowdur, Allison Holt, Su Sun, Gale Mosteller and Clarissa Yeap. RRI was represented by Skadden, Arps, and Mirant was represented by King & Spalding LLP.

Proposed Rulemaking Regarding Position Limits For Derivatives

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently implemented a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding position limits pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. EI Principal John R. Morris and EI Senior Economist Lona Fowdur submitted comments concerning the proposed amendments to the definition of the bona fide hedge exemption and addressed the relevance of some of the proposed rules. They noted that certain changes are needed to allow entities to hedge. As written, the rules may place more restrictions on end-users than are necessary to meet the Act’s goal of restricting excessive speculation.