The Department of Justice and seven states have filed a civil antitrust suit against the three largest credit and charge card transaction networks in the United States, challenging rules that allegedly restrict price competition at the point of sale. MasterCard and Visa have agreed to settle the charges; however, American Express announced that it had…
The FTC’s efforts to substantially revise the Horizontal Merger Guidelines for the first time since 1992 were among the recent agency accomplishments touted by FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz in remarks delivered last week to attendees of Georgetown Law School’s Fourth Annual Global Antitrust Enforcement Symposium and Fordham Competition Law Institute’s International Antitrust Law & Policy…
Are U.S. antitrust laws suited to deal with the challenges presented by rapidly evolving digital industries? That was the question posed at a September 16 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Courts and Competition Policy. The subcommittee heard testimony from six witnesses, including a top Federal Trade Commission official, a consultant to…
The Federal Trade Commission recently suffered a significant setback in its merger enforcement efforts when the federal district court in Minneapolis rejected an action brought by the agency along with the State of Minnesota against global pharmaceutical company Lundbeck, Inc. In December 2008, the FTC and Minnesota filed a complaint against Ovation Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which…
In response to an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into suspicious customer reviews posted on an online store’s website, a public relations firm and its sole owner agreed to remove the reviews from the website and refrain from misrepresenting their status in customer reviews. The pubic relations firm provided sales, marketing, and public relations…
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…
