The Third Circuit reminds, “[i]n antitrust suits, definitions matter.” Last week, in applying that maxim, the court affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a suit filed by a hospital against a competing hospital and physician...more
Last week, in In re Aluminum Warehousing Antitrust Litigation, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (“Second Circuit”) rejected a claim by certain downstream end-users of aluminum that their price manipulation...more
8/16/2016
/ Antitrust Violations ,
Civil Conspiracy ,
Class Action ,
Consumer Protection Act ,
Derivatives ,
Dismissals ,
End-Users ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Market Participants ,
Price Manipulation ,
Price-Fixing ,
Purchasers ,
Standing ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices
In recent years, federal antitrust enforcers and businesses that accept payment cards have been waging a slow war against payment card fees and the card network rules that protect them. The payment card industry’s antitrust...more
8/4/2016
/ American Express ,
Anti-Steering Rules ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Appeals ,
ATMs ,
Banks ,
Civil Conspiracy ,
Competition ,
Conflicts of Interest ,
Credit Cards ,
Damages ,
Debit and Credit Card Transactions ,
Debit Cards ,
Discover Bank ,
FRCP 23(b)(2) ,
FRCP 23(b)(3) ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Interchange Fees ,
Market Power ,
MasterCard ,
Merchant Fees ,
Merchants ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Price-Fixing ,
Reversal ,
Settlement ,
Sherman Act ,
Visa Inc
The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced this week that an activist investment manager has agreed to pay a record $11 million to settle allegations that it violated the requirements of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust...more
7/14/2016
/ Baker Hughes ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Halliburton ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Investment Funds ,
Investment-Only Exemption ,
Investors ,
Popular ,
Reporting Requirements
A popular weapon used to contain health care expenditures is the creation by payors and employers of tiered provider networks, which by differentiated co-pays attempt to steer insureds to less expensive choices. In...more
Judge takes “the healthcare world as it is, and not as the FTC wishes it to be.”
“We find it no small irony that the same federal government under which the FTC operates has created a climate that virtually compels...more
The mere possession of monopoly power does not violate federal antitrust laws. The laws only address the anticompetitive acquisition, maintenance, or abuse of that power. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) entered into a...more
The NCAA scored a victory last week with the denial of class certification in an antitrust suit challenging the association’s former ban on multiyear scholarships (the “One Year Rule”) and its cap on scholarships (the “GIA...more
The Sixth Circuit on Tuesday voted 2 to 1 to reverse a district court’s grant of summary judgment under which a defendant hospital network had been found to be a single entity incapable of conspiring with itself in an...more
In the latest chapter in the litigation wars against college athletics, on March 8, 2016, another antitrust class action was filed against the NCAA in its “home court,” the United States Southern District of Indiana. This...more
An upstart rodeo association, created and owned by professional rodeo cowboys, challenged that its competitor’s bylaws aimed at the new association and its participants constituted agreements that unreasonably restrain trade...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on January 21, 2016 increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the HSR Act)....more
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
In June, an antitrust suit brought by plaintiff ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”) against a health system, health insurers, and a trade association survived a motion to dismiss. Last week, the ASCs’ case cleared the hump of...more
9/3/2015
/ Ambulatory Surgery Centers ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Conspiracies ,
False Statements ,
Insurance Industry ,
Joint Venture ,
Leave to Amend ,
Monopolization ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Sherman Act ,
Trade Associations
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
Late last month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its much-anticipated decision in Microsoft v. Motorola, a breach of contract action brought by Microsoft alleging that Motorola violated its commitment to license its...more
8/17/2015
/ Anti-Suit Injunctions ,
Breach of Contract ,
Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing ,
Damages ,
International Trade Commission (ITC) ,
Licenses ,
Microsoft ,
Motorola ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patents ,
RAND ,
Standard Essential Patents
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
Last week, in response to a request for a preliminary ruling by a German court hearing a patent infringement action brought by Huawei against ZTE, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) took up the question of...more
7/24/2015
/ Abuse of Dominance ,
EU ,
European Court of Justice (ECJ) ,
FRAND ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Popular ,
Remedies ,
Standard Essential Patents ,
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)
On June 30, 2015, the same day as the launch of Apple’s new streaming music service, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals coincidentally affirmed a district court ruling that Apple conspired with five of the country’s largest...more
7/9/2015
/ Amazon ,
Apple ,
Collusion ,
Corporate Counsel ,
ebook ,
Internet Retailers ,
Most-Favored Nations ,
Per Se Rule ,
Price-Fixing ,
Publishers ,
Retailers ,
Rule-of-Reason Analysis ,
Sherman Act ,
Young Lawyers
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
On June 22, 2015, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, upholding the rule, first announced in Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U. S. 29 (1964), that an agreement allowing a patent owner to...more
Over two and one-half years after it was initially filed, an antitrust suit brought by plaintiff ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”) against health insurers and a trade association of competing health systems is finally...more
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