Yesterday, I released a paper at the Center for American Progress on the Obama antitrust record. In the paper, entitled “Reinvigorating Antitrust Enforcement: The Obama Administration’s Progressive Direction on Competition Law and Policy in Challenging Economic Times,” I assesses the Obama administration’s antitrust enforcement up to now and offer recommendations to strengthen that enforcement going forward. …
Nasdaq OMX Group, Inc. and IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) have withdrawn their proposal to acquire NYSE Euronext in the face of antitrust objections from the U.S. Department of Justice. The Justice Department issued a statement on May 16, saying that it had informed the companies that it would file an antitrust lawsuit to block the deal. Under…
Time will tell whether it is a good idea to consummate an acquisition while the Department of Justice Antitrust Division is still investigating. On May 10, the Antitrust Division filed a complaint in the federal district court in Harrisonburg, Virginia, challenging the acquisition of a Tyson Foods Harrisonburg chicken processing complex by George’s, Inc.—the 15th…
Today, the Federal Trade Commission released a plan for dealing with a government shutdown that would occur if Congress fails to enact appropriations by a midnight deadline. A shutdown looked likely as budget talks appeared to have broken down early Friday morning. As part of the FTC’s plan, the Commission’s Premerger Notification Office would remain…
News headlines suggesting an uptick in merger activity in 2010 were validated by the Federal Trade Commission’s 33rd “Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Annual Report,” which was released today by the FTC with the concurrence of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. According to the report, the number of transactions notified to the federal antitrust agencies grew by…
The federal district court in New York City ruled last week that the Department of Justice was entitled to seek disgorgement as a remedy for an alleged Sherman Act violation. The court approved a consent decree, which required KeySpan Corporation to surrender $12 million to the U.S. Treasury to settle a federal antitrust lawsuit brought…
The Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Communications Commission today conditionally approved a joint venture between Comcast Corp. and General Electric Co.’s subsidiary NBC Universal Inc. The joint venture, which was announced in December 2009, combines Comcast–the nation’s largest cable operator and Internet service provider–and NBC Universal’s cable networks, filmed entertainment, and television…
On October 18, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of Michigan sued Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (“Blue Cross”), a not-for-profit insurance provider, under Section 1 of the Sherman Act and analogous state law to enjoin Blue Cross from including most-favored-customer (aka, ‘most favored nation’ (MFN)) clauses in its contracts with…
The federal district court in Sacramento, California, has refused to dismiss an antitrust claim alleging that SK Foods L.P.—a now-defunct food products distributor—conspired with others to eliminate competition in the market for processed tomato products. The private action brought by competitors of SK Foods parallels a closely-watched federal probe of anticompetitive conduct in the industry….
It has been more than a decade since the U.S. Justice Department has brought an antitrust challenge to enjoin the use of “most favored nation” clauses in the health care industry. Many of the more recent, civil non-merger actions against industry participants have targeted alleged boycotts and fee-setting arrangements by providers. Today, the U.S. Justice…
