Some U.S. Supreme Court watchers may have been disappointed that the Court on the last day of the October 2011 term–according to the Court’s calendar–did not decide the fate of President Obama’s health care overhaul legislation. That decision is most likely to come within the next three days, before the Court wraps up for the…
The government’s successful prosecution of AU Optronics Corporation, its wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary, and two former company executives serves as a cautionary tale. The case marks the first time a company has gone to trial over charges resulting from a U.S. investigation into an international cartel. It highlights the dangers of participating in a price fixing…
When competitors form a truce, consumers need to worry because often they find ways to make consumers pay more by cutting off competition. Nowhere is that a more big-ticket concern than an alliance between Nokia and Microsoft, waging a potential patent war on their smart phone rivals and potentially costing consumers millions of dollars in…
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a decision that provides generic pharmaceutical manufacturers with the ability to challenge the “use codes” listed by brand name manufacturers in filings made with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”). The decision in Caraco v. Novo Nordisk illustrates the impact that these “use codes” can have on the…
Two recent antitrust matters serve as reminders that exchanging sensitive information with business competitors can pose significant antitrust risks – particularly when companies stray from the “safety zones” established by the federal antitrust enforcement authorities. From an antitrust perspective, agreements to exchange information present significant risks. An information exchange has the potential to facilitate unlawful…
The Department of Justice Antitrust Division “remains committed to taking all appropriate investigatory and enforcement action against conduct threatening harm to competition in agricultural markets,” according to a report released earlier this month. The report, entitled “Competition and Agriculture: Voices from the Workshops on Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement in our 21st Century Economy and Thoughts…
In recent months, again there have been major developments in German competition law. Some of these developments have unfolded in high-tech industries, such as chipboard panel manufacturing, online video services and telecommunications, while others have arisen in more traditional contexts. At the legislative level, the German government has presented a draft bill for a major…
Earlier this month, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the reasonableness of a vertical price fixing agreement is not to be considered when determining whether such an agreement violates the Kansas Restraint of Trade Act (KRTA). Kansas Supreme Court precedent that called for a “reasonableness rubric”—a determination of whether a restraint was reasonable in view…
The Department of Justice Antitrust Division opened 90 merger investigations and filed 13 merger cases in Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 (October 1, 2010, to September 30, 2011). The uptick in enforcement activity over the past couple of years was in response to an increase in merger activity. Increase in HSR Filings According to recently released…
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta today rejected the Federal Trade Commission’s challenge to a patent litigation settlement between brand name and generic drug companies as an unlawful agreement not to compete in violation of Section 5(a) of the FTC Act. The FTC brought the case in 2009 against Solvay Pharmaceuticals and generic manufacturers…
