On May 22, 2015, in a much-watched case, the Second Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction against Actavis PLC and its wholly owned subsidiary, Forest Laboratories, LLC (collectively “Actavis” or “Forest”), finding 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
Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court held in Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U.S. 29 (1964) that a license agreement requiring royalty payments for use of a patented invention after expiration of the patent term is unlawful per se. ...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
I still consider Groundhog’s Day not only a great comedy, but also a great movie. Twenty-two years ago, the late Harold Ramis graced us with a tale about Phil Connors, a Pittsburgh TV weatherman, who finds himself repeating...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 Tenth Circuit recently affirmed both class certification and one of the largest verdicts issued in the U.S. this year, denying Dow Chemical Company’s (“Dow”) appeal in a price fixing case related to polyurethane products....more
In recent years, antitrust criminal enforcement efforts have increased around the world. These efforts focus mainly on cartels — which the Supreme Court calls “the supreme evil of antitrust” — that conspire to fix prices, rig...more
On August 5, 2014, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated claims of monopolization and attempted monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act brought by a manufacturer of surgical bone mills against a competitor. ...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
From cassette tapes to CDs to Pandora and Spotify, innovations in the music field over the past two decades have drastically changed how people access music. Songwriters, however, are paid according to a system that has been...more
6/7/2014
/ Antitrust Division ,
ASCAP ,
BMI ,
Consent Decrees ,
Copyright ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Digital Assets ,
Licensing Rights ,
Music Industry ,
Pandora ,
Popular ,
Public Performance Rights ,
Publishing Copyrights ,
Royalties ,
Sound Recording Copyrights
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
Nearly five years into the lawsuit, a District Court denied defendant NCAA’s summary judgment motion, and ordered that the antitrust claims of current and former student-athletes denied compensation for the commercial use of...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