In April 2018, the Department of Justice announced an initiative to terminate “legacy” antitrust judgments—those lacking an express termination date. These types of judgments date from the early days of the Sherman Act until the late 1970s, when the Antitrust Division adopted the general practice of including sunset provisions that automatically terminate judgments, usually 10…

Last week, a divided U.S. Supreme Court allowed a monopolization suit filed by a class of iPhone owners to proceed against Apple after concluding that the consumers had standing as direct purchasers of apps. The case is  Apple Inc. v. Pepper, No. 17–204. iPhone owners are direct purchasers of iPhone applications sold in the Apple…

After facing a significant loss in its last monopolization action filed just over two years ago, the Federal Trade Commission last week filed a new monopolization case against a provider of e-prescribing solutions for purportedly using exclusive long-term contracts with customers and other tactics to suppress competition from rivals. The FTC announced on April 24 that it…

Last Friday, the 67th American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law Spring Meeting wrapped up in Washington, D.C., with the annual enforcers roundtable. Much of the discussion by the heads of leading competition authorities at the closing program was focused on competition issues raised by the world’s tech giants. The heads of the Department of…

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. last week concluded that the government failed to prove that the combination of AT&T Inc. and Time Warner Inc. would violate Sec. 7 of the Clayton Act. A decision of the federal district court in Washington, D.C. denying the Antitrust Division’s request to enjoin the deal has been affirmed….

United States v. Kemp & Associates and Daniel Mannix, Case No., 2:16-cr-403 (DS). JudgeSamPerSeMemorandum On August 17, 2016 the defendants in this case were indicted on one count of violating §1 of the Sherman Act by agreeing to allocate customers of heir location services sold in the United States.  Utah District Court Judge David Sam initially…

It just got more difficult for states to recover attorney fees when challenging mergers jointly with the Federal Trade Commission. If an injunction is issued under Sec. 13(b) of the FTC Act to block the merger, then a state joining the FTC in a suit to block the merger is foreclosed from seeking attorney fees and…

I have written before about the fugitive disentitlement doctrine and a recent case about the fugitive disentitlement doctrine caught my attention. United States v. Contoguris, Case: 2:17-cr-00233-EAS (SD Ohio).  It is not an antitrust case but does involve the interplay of the global reach of certain US criminal statutes and the fugitive disentitlement doctrine. The defendant is…

In a decision pondering the adequacy of the Sherman Act to protect consumers from consciously parallel conduct among oligopolists, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld dismissal of a class action against containerboard manufacturers for conspiring to increase prices and reduce output between 2004 and 2010. Although the complaining direct purchasers offered bountiful circumstantial…