It’s shaping up to be a busy term for antitrust issues at the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court on January 12 decided to review a third antitrust case. In the context of a price fixing action against foreign vitamin C manufacturers, the Court will consider “whether a court may exercise independent review of an appearing…
The following post offers a look back at important trends in antitrust enforcement over the past year. Many of the significant developments that are detailed below, including merger challenges and leadership changes, will have a lasting impact on 2018 and beyond. MERGER ENFORCEMENT Department of Justice litigation. The biggest antitrust news story of 2017 was…
The Justice Department’s challenge to AT&T’s proposed $108 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc. is likely the biggest antitrust news story of the year. Much of the attention from the mainstream media has been focused on possible influence by President Trump on the Justice Department’s decision to seek divestitures of assets, such as CNN, to…
In my last post to AntitrustConnect, I wrote about the difficulties that antitrust plaintiffs face in getting to trial with claims based on circumstantial evidence. I discussed a decision of the federal district court in Chicago in a long-running class action against paper companies for conspiring to raise prices for containerboard provides an example of the…
How difficult is it to get an antitrust conspiracy case to a jury when there is no direct evidence of the alleged conspiracy? An August 3 decision of the federal district court in Chicago in a long-running class action against paper companies for conspiring to raise prices for containerboard provides an example of the challenge. Fifteen price increase…
With just two months left in the U.S. Supreme Court’s current term, it’s a good time to take a look at the handful of petitions in antitrust cases that remain on the docket. Since the first Monday in October 2016, the Court has yet to grant any petitions for review in antitrust cases. However, three…
Last July, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division filed two actions, challenging proposed mergers that would have reduced the country’s “big five” health insurers to three. Bench trials have been held in these matters. On Monday, Judge John Bates of the federal district court in Washington, D.C. preliminary enjoined Aetna Inc.’s $37 billion attempt to…
As 2016 comes to a close, a number of important trends in antitrust have emerged that will likely have lasting effects on competition law enforcement in the coming years. A new administration will put its mark on federal antitrust policy, but the following five developments witnessed at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and FTC…
There has been a lot of speculation about what impact the election of Donald J. Trump will have on antitrust enforcement over the next four to eight years. Some commenters have suggested that Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail signals dramatic changes. Candidate Trump spoke of blocking AT&T Inc.’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Inc….
Long-stalled efforts proposed by some federal lawmakers to bring “reform” to the FTC will likely be reintroduced in the 115th Congress. With a Republican majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate, and President Donald J. Trump in the White House, measures that could not get sufficient support in in the current Congress and…
