A. The Broiler Chicken Civil Litigation/Criminal Indictment On June 3, 2020, a grand jury in Colorado returned an indictment charging executives from Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation and Claxton Poultry Farms with fixing prices and rigging bids nationwide for broiler chickens [I wonder how the grand jury met? Zoom?] The case was filed in the…
US v. Lischewski, Case No. 3:18-cr-00203-EMC (N.D. Cal.) Christopher Lischewski, the former CEO of Bumble Bee who was convicted of price fixing after a trial last December, is scheduled to be sentenced on June 16, 2020. The government has requested a guidelines sentence of eight to ten years in prison and a $1 million fine. …
Since the premerger notification program of Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) was passed in 1976, challenges to consummated mergers in the U.S. have dwindled and for good reason: Under HSR, antitrust enforcers can stop mergers that “may be” anti-competitive before they harm consumers. U.S. antitrust enforcers, however, might be considering more such challenges. While they are legally possible,…
Medical supply distributors McKesson Corporation, Owens & Minor Inc., Cardinal Health Inc., Medline Industries Inc., and Henry Schein Inc. have received approval from the Department of Justice Antitrust Division to collaborate on manufacturing, sourcing, and distributing personal-protective equipment (PPE) and coronavirus-treatment-related medication. On April 4, the Antitrust Division issued to these companies its first business…
Last month, the Seventh Circuit in Viamedia Inc. v. Comcast Corp.[1] found that refusal to deal claims can still be successfully alleged under Sherman Act Section 2 if plaintiff’s allegations mirror those in Aspen Skiing closely enough. If it stands, the opinion will make it much more difficult for monopolist defendants to dismiss such claims…
The FTC and State of Pennsylvania on February 28 moved to block the proposed merger of Jefferson Health and Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, two leading providers of inpatient general acute care hospital services and inpatient acute rehabilitation services in the Philadelphia area. The FTC issued an administrative complaint alleging that the proposed merger would reduce…
The FTC’s authority to seek permanent injunctive relief and monetary relief under Section 13(b) of the FTC Act is being called into question. While more commonly used in consumer protection cases, Section 13(b) has been used by the FTC to seek injunctive relief and equitable relief in competition cases as well. Just this week, the…
Consent decree reform has been a hallmark of the Makan Delrahim Antitrust Division. For two years, the head of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division has undertaken efforts to terminate legacy consent decrees and to streamline consent decree enforcement procedures. The agency has retired hundreds of legacy antitrust judgments. Currently, the agency is seeking to…
This article follows up on an October 15, 2019 article by the author on a reported investigation by the DOJ Antitrust Division into possible ‘collusion’ by four carmakers in entering into a framework agreement with the State of California on emissions standards. What the government antitrust enforcers choose not to pursue may be as revealing…
A petition for review is before the Supreme Court filed by three California real estate investors who were convicted after trial under Section 1 of the Sherman Act for bid rigging at real estate foreclosure auctions. The defendants preserved their objection that the application of the per se rule was unconstitutional because it took an…
