Articles Posted in DOJ Antitrust Highlights

On September 22, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that they will solicit public comment and hold joint public workshops to explore the possibility of updating the Horizontal Merger Guidelines that are used by both agencies to evaluate the potential competitive effects of mergers and acquisitions. The Merger Guidelines…

On September 18, the DOJ presented its a statement of its views regarding the proposed class action settlement between the American Association of Publishers and Google. As the parties continue to modify the settlement agreement, the DOJ issued a statement of interest to the court to provide the court with the Antitrust Division’s concerns relating…

On September 8, 2009, the Department of Justice announced that it would not challenge the formation of a Reliance Network, a joint venture between seven regional less-than-truckload (“LTL”) freight transportation companies, based on the representations made by the applicants.The Reliance Network is comprised of: Averitt Express Inc.; DATS Trucking Inc.; Lakeville Motor Express Inc.; Land…

On September 4, 2009, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it would not challenge a joint purchasing agreement of certain medical supplies between Memorial Health, Inc (“Memorial”) and St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System (“St. Joseph’s/Candler”). The efficiencies produced by the joint purchasing agreement will reduce transactions for the hospitals and will result in lower costs…

On September 3, the companies announced that they received clearance from the Department of Justice to complete their proposed merger without conditions.The DOJ issued a second reqeust around June 22. The entire investigation took approximately four months. The second request period, however, was relatively short as it lasted only about two months. Despite the extra…

On August 25, 2009, Epson Imaging Devices Corporation (“Epson”), a Japanese electronics manufacturer, pled guilty for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices in the sale of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (“TFT-LDC”) panels and agreed to pay a fine of $26 million. TFT-LCD panels are used in computer monitors, notebooks, televisions, mobile phones,…

On August 20, 2009, the DOJ announced that it reached a proposed settlement with Microsemi Corporation requiring the company to divest all of the assets that it acquired from Semicoa Inc. on July 14, 2008. The DOJ investigated the consummated acquisition and filed a civil antitrust suit to force Microsemi to divest the Semicoa assets…

On August 20, 2009, Oracle announced that the DOJ closed its investigation of Oracle’s acquisition of Sun. The DOJ issued a second request to further investigate the transaction in late June. The DOJ ended its investigation approximatley two months after issuing the second request without requiring any remedy. Apparently, the licensing of Sun’s Java software…

On August 19, 2009, Wen Jun (“Tony”) Cheng, a former assistant vice president of sales and marketing at a large Taiwanese color display tube (CDT) manufacturing company, was indicted at U.S. District Court in San Francisco for his role in a global conspiracy to fix prices of CDTs. CDTs are a type of cathode ray…

On August 5, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) will hold joint public workshops to explore competition issues affecting the agriculture industry and the appropriate role for antitrust enforcement in agriculture. These are the first joint DOJ/USDA workshops…