Articles Posted in Civil Non-Merger Highlights

On January, 17, 2020, smaller rivals such as PopSockets, Basecamp, Sonos, and Tile testified to the the House antitrust subcommittee about how they have been bullied by big tech giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon and called for swift action. According to the New York Times, the smaller rivals, which have largely been…

Employers and Human Resource personnel need a crash course in the antitrust laws and an understanding of the antitrust risks of entering into no-poach agreements. What is a no-poach agreement?  A no-poach agreement is essentially an agreement between two companies not to compete for each other’s employees, such as by not soliciting or hiring them.…

On August 20, 2019, it was reported that the states are set to join forces to investigate Big Tech. On the same day, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) said the DOJ is working with a group of more than a dozen state attorneys general…

On March 22, 2019, Judge John Michael Vazquez of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey granted Allergan’s motion to dismiss Shire’s antitrust complaint that Allergan monopolized the Medicare Part D dry eye disease (“DED”) treatment market through its contracting practices with insurers including rebates based on a bundled portfolio of…

Changes in the economy, technology, international business, and data collection have all converged to make the FTC rethink its enforcement priorities going forward. In the spirit of the 1995 Pitofsky Hearings, the FTC on September 13, 2018 kicked off the first day of hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century at Georgetown…

On Friday, September 14th, a Congressional briefing was held regarding the renegotiation of NAFTA and how certain changes under discussion could end up undermining the President’s Blueprint to lower drug prices in the United States by extending pharma monopolies.  One of the provisions under discussion would increase brand-name drug exclusivity.  Imposing additional brand-name drug exclusivity…

On August 2, 2018, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division announced that it would begin a review of legacy consent decrees “regulat[ing] how certain movie studios distribute films to movie theatres.”  The Paramount Consent Decrees have been in place for almost 70 years.  U.S. v. Paramount, 334 U.S. 131 (1948).  The Supreme Court decision forced major studios…

On December 6, 2017, Senator Elizabeth Warren sharply criticized the state of antitrust enforcement in a speech at the Open Markets Institute. She said that antitrust enforcers adopted the Chicago School principles, which narrowed the scope of the antitrust laws and allowed mega-mergers to proceed resulting in many concentrated industries.  She believes that antitrust enforcers…

On September 21, 2017, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division issued a business letter stating that it would not challenge a proposal by The Clearing House Payments Company LLC (“TCH”), a joint venture of 24 U.S. banks, to create and operate a new payment system that will enable the real-time transfer of funds between depository institutions, at…

On March 23, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it reached a settlement that will prohibit DIRECTV Group Holdings, LLC (“DirecTV”) and its parent corporation, AT&T Inc. (“AT&T”), from illegally sharing confidential, forward-looking information with competitors. On November 2, 2016, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division filed suit alleging that DirecTV was the ringleader…