Reports are circulating that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is having doubts about its antitrust case against Google. This is not surprising. There are many hazards of a case against Google, including the difficulty in identifying consumer harm, the logical paradox of “search neutrality,” and the inappropriateness of expanding “duty to deal” case law. And…
The press is on fire with dozens of stories that the FTC appears poised to sue Google for alleged anticompetitive conduct in search (and the possibility that any case may be settled). There certainly is no lack of well-paid advocates for aggrieved rivals ready to spin claims that Google is the next Microsoft and that…
Over the last decade, the patent landscape has been dramatically altered by the rise of entities whose business model is to acquire significant patent portfolios and aggressively pursue license fees from businesses selling products that may infringe on some of those patents. Such companies are known as “non-practicing entities” (NPEs) or “patent assertion entities” (or,…
What would likely be the last major acquisition in the car rental industry may soon be completed, with the blessing of the Federal Trade Commission. The pending acquisition of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. by Hertz Global Holdings, Inc., currently under review by the FTC, would cement the positions of the three major car rental companies…
On Friday morning the FTC announced that it had closed its investigation of Universal Music Group’s acquisition of EMI’s recorded music division. The Commission will not seek any concessions or take other action. Elsewhere I’ve written and said that I think the merger is probably awfully anticompetitive and that it should be blocked completely. A few thoughts….
George Mason University (GMU) Law Professor Joshua D. Wright has been picked by the Obama Administration to replace Federal Trade Commission member J. Thomas Rosch—a fellow Republican—whose term expires later this month. The White House announced the intended nomination on September 10. In addition to serving as a professor at GMU School of Law and…
Reverse payments settlements between patent holders and would-be generic competitors in the pharmaceutical industry should be reviewed under a “quick look” rule of reason analysis based on the economic realities of the reverse payment settlement, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled today. The appellate court decided that wholesalers and retailers who purchased a…
More than four years after Polypore International Inc. acquired rival battery separator manufacturer Microporous Products L.P., the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta has determined that the transaction was anticompetitive. The appellate court yesterday upheld a December 2010 opinion of the Federal Trade Commission, which held that the that the merger of the two producers…
Many opponents of Google’s business practices have trotted out the United States v. Microsoft decision and declared with beguiling simplicity that Google is the next Microsoft. They have suggested that the government’s case against Microsoft ten years ago provides a roadmap for a similar enforcement action against Google. To them, all you have to do…
This morning the Court granted certiorari in Federal Trade Commission v. Phoebe Putney Health, No. 11-1160, on appeal from an execrable pair of opinions in the Eleventh Circuit and the Middle District of Georgia. At issue is a local hospital merger that would give the acquiror 100% in its county and upwards of 90% in…
