Consumers and small businesses that are parties to contracts containing arbitration agreements will find it tougher, if not impossible, to avoid the terms of those agreements and pursue an antitrust action in court against the other contracting party, in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Noting that “the antitrust laws do not guarantee an…
Terrell McSweeny, Chief Counsel for Competition Policy and Intergovernmental Relations at the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, is President Obama’s pick to fill the current vacancy on five-member Federal Trade Commission. The White House announced today the President’s intention to nominate McSweeny. According to the announcement, McSweeny has served in the senior counsel position at…
A “reverse payment” settlement agreement is not entitled to “near-automatic antitrust immunity” simply because its anticompetitive effects fall within the scope of the exclusionary potential of the patent, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this week in a five-to-three decision. Although such agreements, also known as “pay-for-delay” settlements, are not presumptively unlawful, the FTC should be…
It appears that the U.S. Supreme Court will soon resolve a split among the circuits on the issue of whether parens patriae actions can be removed from state court as “mass actions” under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). Earlier this week, the Court agreed to review a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals…
FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez and William J. Baer, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee on Tuesday. The hearing, entitled “Oversight of the Enforcement of the Antitrust Laws,” was the subcommittee’s first antitrust oversight hearing since Ramirez and Baer took the helms…
FTC Commissioner Joshua D. Wright told attendees of the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law Spring Meeting on April 11 that he was hopeful that the Commission will issue a policy statement, articulating what constitutes an unfair method of competition in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. Saying it is the “Commission’s…
The Ninth Circuit on Thursday ruled that a plaintiff need not make a purchase in California to recover overcharges for price-fixed goods under the California Cartwright Act. AT&T Corporation and other telecommunications companies that sold mobile wireless handsets containing liquid crystal display (LCD) panels could assert price fixing claims under the California Cartwright Act against…
The Federal Trade Commission announced on Friday that Chairman Jon Leibowitz is planning to leave the Commission effective February 15. Leibowitz has chaired the agency since March 2009 and has been a commissioner since September 2004. Leibowitz did not offer any details of his plans following his departure from the agency. When Leibowitz began serving…
The Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of the now-abandoned merger between Integrated Device Technologies and PLX Technology was the topic of remarks delivered by FTC Commissioner Julie Brill at Skadden’s and Compass/Lexecon’s annual “Antitrust in the Technology Sector” program in Palo Alto, California, on January 28. “The issues raised by IDT/PLX spanned the Merger Guidelines,” Brill said….
In order to assert an antitrust injury, a plaintiff needs to be a consumer or a competitor in the restrained market, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled yesterday. If a company makes the choice not to compete, then it will lack standing to pursue antitrust claims. Ethypharm S.A. France, a French pharmaceutical company,…
