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
The Sixth Circuit recently revived an antitrust class action alleging a conspiracy between a processed milk bottler, a raw milk supplier and a raw milk processor to restrict milk supply in violation of Section 1 of the...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
In 1997, most people thought of Amazon.com as mainly an online bookseller, you couldn't buy groceries at Wal-Mart or Target, and if you wanted floppy disks, VHS tapes, or a fax machine, you drove to your local Staples,...more
On July 10, 2013, 15 months after the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its suit against Apple Inc. (Apple) and five major publishers for allegedly conspiring to raise e-book prices and end e-book retailers’ freedom to...more
For over a decade, the antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission have challenged the type of patent settlement where a brand-name drug manufacturer pays a prospective generic manufacturer to settle patent...more
On May 31, 2013, the Fourth Circuit issued an opinion upholding the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) determination that the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners (Board) illegally expelled non-dentists from the teeth...more
Merger agreements often contain ancillary provisions that seem acceptable to the parties in the context of what they are obtaining from the transaction—and those provisions often do not get a hard look by antitrust legal...more