The Eighth Circuit’s recent decision in Southeast Missouri Hospital v. C.R. Bard, Inc., ___ F.3d ___, 2010 WL 3220600 (8th Cir. Aug. 17, 2010), aligns this Circuit with the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Cascade Health Solutions v. PeaceHealth, 515 F.3d 883, 906-07 (9th Cir.2008).. Under those decisions the Sherman Act tests for exclusion by means…
On August 19, 2010, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued the final revised Horizontal Merger Guidelines in order to reflect changes to the agencies’ merger review process and to assist businesses in understanding how the agencies evaluate proposed mergers and acquisitions. The current guidelines are…
A case involving Google confirms that the French Competition Authority is keen on using a combination of interim measures and commitment proceedings in order help it quickly resolve maters which it perceives as competition issues. This may remain a specific feature of the French system however: having regard to the very demanding standard of proof…
Welcome to AntitrustConnect. At this time of new direction and change in antitrust enforcement and practice, Wolters Kluwer Law & Business is excited to sponsor this blog as a forum for analysis, commentary, and discussion of antitrust issues for lawyers and economists in the field. There has been much discussion about the reinvigoration of antitrust enforcement…
In a case of first impression, the California Supreme Court recently decided that alleged victims of a price fixing scheme can pursue treble damages claims under the California Cartwright Act, even though the victims passed on some or all of the purported overcharges to indirect purchasers downstream in the chain of distribution. Thus, the state’s…
In American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League, 130 S.Ct. 2201 (2010), the Supreme Court held that the NFL acting through its incorporated subsidiary NFL Properties, Inc. (NFLP) was not a single entity but rather a combination of its 32 individual member teams for purposes of the plaintiff’s antitrust challenge to an exclusive licensing agreement….
In the deep, dark antitrust dungeon reserved for per se offenses, only one species of conduct remains that does not involve a horizontal conspiracy: tying arrangements. Minimum resale pricing agreements tunneled their way out thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2007 Leegin decision, even though Congress and the states are in hot pursuit, with every intention…
