Earlier this month, Advocate General Wahl delivered his opinion in the Deutsche Bahn[1] case. This case concerns important practical principles which govern the conduct of European Commission dawn raids (on-the-spot surprise inspections used to investigate possible infringements of the EU competition rules). In particular, the case focusses on what inspectors can do with documents that…
Woodman’s Food Market is a chain of warehouse-style grocery stores in Wisconsin. As such, its sales strategy was similar to that employed by Costco and Sam’s Club: the ability to purchase groceries at lower prices by purchasing in large size containers. However, Woodman’s did not charge a membership fee as a prerequisite to shopping at…
(An in-depth article on In re LIBOR and antitrust injury is available here under this title. The following is a preview of my article). (N.B.: In a coincidence of timing, on Jan. 28, 2015, the date of this posting and publication of the linked article, Judge Lorna Schofield of the federal district court for the…
The Canadian government is determined to remedy what it (and many Canadians) regard as an unjustified gap between US and Canadian prices for the same goods. In particular, the government has focused on what it perceives to be unjustified “country pricing” or “cross-border price discrimination”, ie, businesses charging more for goods sold in Canada than…
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…
The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division had another active year in antitrust enforcement in 2014. As for FTC antitrust enforcement efforts, FTC Bureau of Competition Director Deborah L. Feinstein was kind enough to provide a list of the “Ten Competition Happenings for 2014” on the agency’s Competition Matters blog. Her list…
Last week, the Council gave itself another shot at improving the functioning of the General Court of the European Union (the ‘General Court’). And once again, it failed. Following an already disappointing episode in March 2014,[1] the Council again placed the equality between member states at the top of its priorities, by doubling up the number…
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…
The dangers of prematurely exercising operational control over an acquisition target, or at least appearing to operate organizational control, are highlighted by a Department of Justice Antitrust Division action announced yesterday against two particleboard suppliers that recently dropped their planned combination. Just five weeks ago, Flakeboard America Ltd. abandoned its proposed acquisition of rival SierraPine…
Two unusual features of the United Kingdom’s merger control regime are that notification is voluntary and there is no ‘suspension’ obligation. This means that mergers can be – and routinely are – completed without notification to and/or approval by the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”). In this article, I examine the CMA’s use of its…
