Articles Posted in DOJ Antitrust Highlights

On November 13, 2007, the Department of Justice announced that it reached a settlement that will require Vulcan Materials Company and Florida Rock Industries Inc. to divest eight quarries that produce coarse aggregate in Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia and one distribution yard in Virginia in order to proceed with their proposed $4.6 billion merger. The…

On October 9, 2007 the Federal Trade Commission entered into a settlement agreement with Kyphon, Inc. (“Kyphon”) that allows Kyphon to acquire the spinal assets of Disc-O-Tech Medical Technologies, Ltd. and Discotech Orthopedic Technologies, Inc. (collectively “Disc-O-Tech”).According to the complaint filed with the settlement agreement, the post-merger U.S. market for minimally invasive vertebral compression fracture…

On September 27, FirstGroup plc entered into a settlement agreement with the DOJ for First Group to sell off a large school bus contract and associated assets in Alaska in order to progress with its acquisition of Laidlaw International Inc. Without the settlement agreement, the DOJ believed the transaction raised competition concerns in the provision…

On September 20, 2007, Mr. Jacobi, the president and owner of Jacobi Industries Inc., pled guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to rig bids on U.S. Department of Defense (“DOD”) contracts for military tiedown equipment and cargo securing systems. Under the plea agreement, Mr. Jacobi agreed to pay a criminal fine of $20,000, and…

On September 17, Thomas O. Barnett, Assistant Attorney General for the Department’s Antitrust Division, issued a statement scrutinizing the Court of First Instance of the European Communities (“CFI) decision to affirm the substance of the European Commission’s (“EC”) March 2004 decision against Microsoft. Mr. Barnett said that “in light of the United States’ own antitrust…

On September 14, a federal grand jury in San Francisco convicted Judy Green, of Temecula, California, a former sales representative for her role in schemes to defraud the federal E-Rate program. Ms. Green was convicted on all charges in a 22-count indictment involving fraud, collusion, aiding and abetting, and conspiracy in connection with E-Rate projects…

On September 13, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida federal grand jury returned an indictment charging two individuals in a conspiracy to rig bids fix prices and allocate market shares for sales of marine hose used to transport oil. The indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, charged Francesco Scaglia and Val M.…

On August 14, 2007, the DOJ announced that a federal grand jury in Phoenix returned an indictment charging a commercial refrigeration company and its co-owner with participating in a conspiracy to rig bids on contracts for the installation of commercial refrigeration equipment in Safeway Inc. grocery stores in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The indictment, filed…

On August 7, 2007, the DOJ announced that William Alan Potts, the vice president of a Virginia marine products company agreed to plead guilty, serve a sentence and pay a criminal fine for his role in a conspiracy to rig bids and allocate customers with respect to marine products purchased by the U.S. Navy, the…

On August 6, 2006 the DOJ’s Antitrust Division requested a federal judge in Washington, D.C. to appoint a trustee to sell Mittal Steel Company N.V.’s Sparrow Point facility that’s located near Baltimore to resolve antitrust concerns related to Mittal’s proposed acquisition of Arcelor S.A. The acquisition as originally proposed would substantially lessen competition in the…