In a manner that can fairly be described by now as “business as usual,” the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division issued a press release on Wednesday, December 11, announcing their decision to withdraw another key regulatory guidance document: the Antitrust Guidelines for Collaborations Among Competitors.  

“Reptile theory” is a litigation tactic used by plaintiffs’ lawyers to appeal to a jury’s survival instincts by casting defendants as threats to community safety. Popularized by Don C. Keenan and David Ball in their book, Reptile: The 2009 Manual of the Plaintiff’s Revolution, it builds on the “triune brain” neuroscience theory, which posits that the human brain is made up of three regions of increasing evolutionary complexity.