The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on November 26 in a suit alleging that the Ninth Circuit erred in holding that iPhone App Store customers were direct purchasers of those apps and had standing to sue Apple for the monopolization and attempted monopolization of the market for the sales of iPhone apps. The liberal justices…

In an earlier post I discussed the Fiscal Year 2018 Antitrust Division statistics for criminal cases filed and noted that they were down dramatically (here).  This is not a one year drop off, but a trend since the high water mark of 2015 (here).  It is not just case filings that are down, but also…

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats should continue their truth-out tradition when the Subcommittee on Antitrust holds an antitrust hearing October 3rd. Here are a few recommended questions: 1. Sprint/T-Mobile Merger. Even after the Department of Justice Antitrust Division rejected the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile as harmful to consumers, Sprint and T-Mobile have proposed a…

I have been advocating for some time that antitrust cartel whistleblower legislation be passed.  Whistleblower legislation has been phenomenally successful for the SEC and other agencies and there is no reason price fixing/bid rigging cartels shouldn’t face the threat of a whistleblower.  Kimberly Justice and I wrote a short article: It’s a Crime There Isn’t an…

On August 20, 2018 the Antitrust Division announced in a press release (here) the return of an indictment (here) against a real estate company, a realtor and an accountant that does not include a charge of violating the Sherman Act. The press release states: [T]he Detloffs devised a scheme requiring repair contractors to pay the…

Fordham University School of Law’s Competition Law Institute (FCLI) will hold its 45th Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, on September 6-7, 2018, and an Antitrust Economics Workshop, September 5, 2018, at Fordham Law School in New York City. The two-day conference will include antitrust agency heads, senior officials from antitrust authorities, leading…

A record €4.34 billion (approximately $5 billion) fine was imposed on Google last week by the European Commission (EC) in response to the company’s imposition of restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators. The EC announced that Google’s practice of requiring mobile device manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome)…

The DOJ issued a standard press release yesterday announcing yet another individual guilty plea in its long running real estate foreclosure auction collusion investigation: Seventh Mississippi Real Estate Investor Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Rig Bids at Public Foreclosure Auctions.   According to the press release to date there have been “convictions of well over 100 other…

In a five-to-four decision yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and several states failed to prove that so-called “anti-steering” provisions imposed by American Express Company on merchants that accept AmEx cards harmed competition in violation of federal antitrust law. The Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Clarence…

In a decision that will have a significant impact on antitrust enforcement, particularly private damages actions against international cartels, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that a federal court considering a case in which foreign law is relevant is not bound to defer to an official interpretation of the law offered by the foreign government. The decision…