Keystone Orthopaedic Specialists, LLC (“Keystone”), and Orthopaedic Associates of Reading, Ltd. (“OA”) reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission last week that they had violated the antitrust laws through the...more
In what has become rare of late, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) suffered a litigation loss in a merger case with a district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction to block the deal pending administrative litigation....more
At the request of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”), the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed this week in federal court a proposed settlement to charges that an investment fund violated the...more
8/27/2015
/ Board of Directors ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Premerger Notifications ,
Settlement Agreements ,
Shareholders ,
Third Point ,
Yahoo!
The Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC” or “Commission”) ever-expanding list of enforcement actions to preserve competition for generic pharmaceuticals just grew in a new direction. This week, two generic pharmaceutical...more
The federal antitrust enforcement agencies have trumpeted their preferences for structural, as opposed to conduct, remedies as the solution to potentially anticompetitive mergers. In contrast, State Attorneys General have...more
Eighteen months after the deal was first announced, Sysco Corporation (“Sysco”) and US Foods, Inc. (“USF”) abandoned their $3.5 billion merger following the Federal Trade Commission’s (the “FTC” or “Commission”) decisive...more
7/8/2015
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Distributors ,
Divestiture ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Food Supply ,
Mergers ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Sysco ,
Trucking Industry ,
US Foods ,
Young Lawyers
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) filed an administrative complaint last week challenging the proposed $1.9 billion merger of Steris Corporation (“Steris”) and Synergy Health plc (“Synergy”), charging that...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) accepted on Tuesday from Reynolds American Inc. (“Reynolds”) and Lorillard Inc. (“Lorillard”), subject to final approval, a Consent Order settling the agency’s significant competitive...more
5/30/2015
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Investigations ,
Consent Order ,
Divestiture ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Mergers ,
RJ Reynolds ,
Settlement Offer ,
The Clayton Act ,
Tobacco
The situations where exclusive dealing policies, explicit or tied to an aggressive discounting program, cross the line under the rule-of-reason remain far from clear. Because it involved appellate review of a Federal Trade...more
In a 3-2 decision, as part of its aggressive antitrust enforcement in health care industries, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC or the Commission) announced that Cardinal Health, Inc. (Cardinal) agreed to pay $26.8 million to...more
The waves of change affecting health care providers include reimbursement and funding developments, the impact of the Affordable Care Act, technological and medical advances, provider network design transformations imposed by...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) on Monday completed its review of Novartis AG’s (“Novartis”) proposed $16 billion acquisition of GlaxoSmithKline’s (“GSK”) oncology drug portfolio with an announced consent decree that...more
On February 25, 2015, in a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court upheld the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) decision finding that the North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners (Board), although a state...more
The Department of Justice (the “Department” or “DOJ”) continued its multi-pronged defense of standards-setting organizations (SSOs) who adopt patent policies to prevent hold-up during licensing negotiations. Last week’s...more
In a much anticipated appellate health care antitrust decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a district court’s finding that a consummated hospital-physician group merger violated Section 7...more
Last March, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) began a public workshop series entitled, “Examining Health Care Competition.” On February 24 and 25, 2015, the FTC will physically host the...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on January 15, 2015 increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the HSR Act)....more
The interplay between the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), and antitrust has been a matter of great moment for several years. It has been an issue in litigation such as the Federal Trade...more
The Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) recent settlement with ski manufacturers Marker Volkl (International) GmbH (“Marker Volkl”) and Tecnica S.p.A. (“Tecnica”) continues to expand the scope of “inherently suspect” business...more
In a highly anticipated decision, the federal antitrust agencies’ reinvigorated hospital merger enforcement efforts received a boost when, for the first time this century, an appellate court upheld a Federal Trade Commission...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) has often stated that merger analysis requires more than a simplistic determination that high market concentration leads to anticompetitive effects. Still, the antitrust...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a well-established role in promoting competition in the health care industry through enforcement, study and advocacy. To that end, the agency actively urges the opening of health care...more
In a significant groundbreaking victory, on January 24, 2014 after a bench trial, an Idaho federal district court judge upheld the FTC’s antitrust challenge to a hospital system’s (St. Luke’s) acquisition of a multispecialty...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on January 17, 2014 increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the HSR Act)....more
Under the antitrust merger guidelines, a maverick is a firm “that plays a disruptive role in the market to the benefit of customers.” In Washington political circles, a maverick often refers to a politician that does not hew...more