On April 27, 2016, the FTC entered an administrative complaint against Invibio, Inc., accusing it and its parent company, Victrex, of violating FTC Act Section 5 through exclusive dealing contracts. The companies agreed to a consent order, also issued that day. Because the antitrust aspects of exclusive dealing remain unsettled, practitioners (and their clients) would…
Antitrust is hot! Well, as hot as antitrust gets: the mainstream media has covered antitrust issues a few times recently, and policy discussions have broken out in Congress and on the campaign trail. While I disagree with many of the comments, I think it is great that such questions are being discussed by policymakers, reporters,…
In 2009, It’s My Party, Inc. (IMP) sued Live Nation (LN) in federal district court in Maryland alleging anticompetitive tying, bundling, and other forms of monopolization. In February 2015, the court granted Live Nation’s second summary judgment motion. IMP appealed, surely thinking that it was LN’s turn to cry. Instead, in February 2016, the Fourth…
All antitrust lawyers (and, we hope, all our clients) understand the dangers of price discussions with competitors. But even vertical price discussions—those with suppliers or retailers—can later raise antitrust issues. The most recent vivid examples are the cases Johnson & Johnson is defending against Costco and others after it imposed a Colgate program following discussions…
When the FTC prevailed in narrowing the state action exemption in North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners in February 2015, the hope of many commentators was that the result might be a reduction in excessive or unnecessary local regulation. While that still might be the ultimate result, the immediate reaction of some state legislatures has…
Finding a unifying theory to explain (almost) all the decisions of the Supreme Court in a substantive area can be a difficult task. Alden Abbott and Thom Lambert’s new article accomplishes it for the antitrust decisions of the Roberts Court.[1] They contend that these opinions can be seen as the Court implementing Professor (now Judge)…
The FTC has notched two Supreme Court wins in recent years to narrow the state action exemption. But elements of those two cases might best be seen as evidence that the FTC is losing the broader fight: increasing antitrust compliance by convincing non-experts of the wisdom of antitrust’s principles. Here’s a quick refresher on the…
It’s not often that one Fortune 50 company sues another – but that’s what happened earlier this week when Costco sued Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in California federal court over J&J’s attempts to limit Costco’s resale prices of J&J’s contact lenses. For antitrust practitioners, however, the case is of interest because of its potential lessons…
Who would have thought that ductile iron pipe fittings would make for such an interesting antitrust case? While the product might be prosaic, the convoluted facts of the McWane v. FTC case in the 11th Circuit could be used as a law school exam question (and some of us already have). The issues are now…
Antitrust law debates usually emphasize price effects while other elements of competition get less attention. Three recent writings by leading antitrust thinkers, however, explore the interaction between antitrust law and competition, on the one hand, and innovation, quality and long-term labor markets, respectively, on the other. As summarized below, each piece discusses an attribute of…
