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…
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on November 26 in a suit alleging that the Ninth Circuit erred in holding that iPhone App Store customers were direct purchasers of those apps and had standing to sue Apple for the monopolization and attempted monopolization of the market for the sales of iPhone apps. The liberal justices…
A record €4.34 billion (approximately $5 billion) fine was imposed on Google last week by the European Commission (EC) in response to the company’s imposition of restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators. The EC announced that Google’s practice of requiring mobile device manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome)…
In response to an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into suspicious customer reviews posted on an online store’s website, a public relations firm and its sole owner agreed to remove the reviews from the website and refrain from misrepresenting their status in customer reviews. The pubic relations firm provided sales, marketing, and public relations…
On August 19, 2010, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued the final revised Horizontal Merger Guidelines in order to reflect changes to the agencies’ merger review process and to assist businesses in understanding how the agencies evaluate proposed mergers and acquisitions. The current guidelines are…
