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On April 22, 2009, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division announced its leadership team. The new team includes the Chief of Staff, four Deputy Assistant Attorneys General, a Special Counsel for Competition Policy. Two Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals will oversee civil matters, one Deputy Assistant Attorney General will oversee economic analysis and one Deputy Assistant…

On March 31, 2009, Sakae Someya, an executive at Hitachi Displays, Ltd. (“Hitachi”) was charged for participating in a conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition in the Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (“TFT-LCD”) industry by fixing prices of TFT-LCD panels sold to Dell, Inc (“Dell”) for its use in notebook and desktop computers.TFT-LCD panels are…

On March 26, 2009, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (“BMS”) agreed to pay a fine of $2.1 million for failing to inform the Federal Trade Commission of oral agreements reached with Apotex, Inc., regarding potential generic competition to its drug Plavix. BMS’s conduct violated a 2003 FTC Order and the Medicare Modernization Act, which requires that certain…

On March 4, 2009, the National Association of Music Merchants (“NAMM”) agreed to a Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) consent order settling charges of NAMM’s conduct that enhanced members’ ability to increase prices of musical instruments. NAMM is a trade association of U.S. manufacturers, distributors, and dealers of musical instruments. As a trade association, its purpose…

On January 14, 2009, AT&T Inc. (“AT&T”) entered into a civil settlement worth $2 million with the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to settle charges that AT&T was in contempt of a March 2008 consent decree AT&T entered into during its acquisition of Dobson Communications Corporation (“Dobson”).The consent decreed required AT&T to divest three mobile wireless…

After more than a decade of deliberations, the People’s Republic of China promulgated its Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”) at the Twenty-Ninth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Tenth National People’s Congress on August 30, 2007. The new law will go into effect tomorrow, August 1, 2008. Like the Indian Competition Act, which will be effective…

In 1999, the Government of India formed a committee to make recommendations regarding a modern competition law. The new competition law took the form of the Competition Act, 2002 which was enacted and notified in January 2003. It replaced the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act constituted in 1970. However, due to some reservations within…

On July 17, 2008, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a complaint challenging the proposed $9 billion acquisition of V&S Vin & Sprit (“V&S”), a wholly owned corporation of the Kingdom of Sweden, by Pernod Ricard (“Pernod”), a wholly owned subsidiary of France-based Pernod. The FTC contends that the transaction is anticompetitive and violates U.S.…

On July 16, 2008, the European Commission (“EC”) announced that it would expand its investigation of the Intel Corporation by filing new antitrust charges. The charges allege that Intel provides inducements, such as discounts, rebates, and marketing payments, to computer manufactures discouraging them to use chips made by Intel’s smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices (“AMD”).…

On July 1, 2008, Visa Inc. rescinded a rule that required merchants to treat Visa-branded debit cards differently when used as a PIN-debit card (and processed via non-Visa networks) from the same cards when used as signature debit cards and processed on the Visa network. The rule was rescinded in response to the Department of…