Antitrust Lawyer Blog

On December 16, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) filed an administrative complaint against Intel Corporation (“Intel”) alleging that it has engaged in anticompetitive and unfair conduct in order to stifle competition and maintain its monopoly position. In the complaint, the FTC alleges a number of unfair methods of competition in violation of Section 5…

On December 16, 2009, Cisco announced that the DOJ terminated the mandatory waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act of 1976, as amended, with respect to Cisco’s pending acquisition of Starent Networks. The DOJ chose not to issue a second request to review Cisco’s acquisition of Starent even though the acquisition led to increased…

On December 2, 2009, the FTC announced an order settling charges that Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.’s acquisition of Robin Hood Holdings Limited, owner of Arrow Pharmaceuticals, would have harmed consumers by eliminating future competition for important generic drugs used to treat Parkinson’s disease (cabergoline) and the side effects of chemotherapy (dronabinol). Under the order’s terms, Watson…

On November 25, 2009, the FTC announced that it approved SCI’s acquisition of Palm Mortuary, Inc. (“Palm”) as long as it sold a cemetery and funeral home in Las Vegas. The FTC alleged that Las Vegas has a highly concentrated market for cemetery services, which includes burial plots, opening and closing of graves, memorials, burial…

On November 2, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released an opinion stating that the Realcomp II (“Realcomp”), a real estate multiple listing service (“MLS”) serving southeast Michigan, took part in anticompetitive practices by restricting some of its members access to its database.An MLS is a database that includes members’ home listings information. Members are…

On October 14, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) settled with Pfizer Inc. regarding its proposed $68 billion acquisition of Wyeth. According to the FTC, the proposed transaction would have reduced competition in several U.S. markets for the manufacture and sale of animal vaccines and animal pharmaceutical products. Veterinarians and other animal health product customers…

On October 13, 2009, Arctic Glacier International (“AGI”) and three of its former executives, Frank Larson (former senior VP of operations), Keith Corbin (former VP of sales), and Gary Cooley (former VP of sales and marketing), pled guilty for their role in a conspiracy to allocate customers of packaged-ice in the Detroit metropolitan area and…

On October 13, 2009, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) settled with AT&T Inc. (“AT&T”) regarding its $944 million acquisition of Centennial Communications Corp. (“Centennial”). Specifically, AT&T is required to divest its assets in eight Cellular Marketing Areas (“CMA”), as defined by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”), in southwestern and central Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi in…

On October 7, 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) settled its litigation regarding Carilion Clinic’s (“Carilion”) acquisition of two outpatient clinics. On July 24, 2009, the FTC issued an administrative complaint challenging Carilion’s August 2008 acquisition of two outpatient clinics in the Roanoke, Virginia area. Prior to the acquisition, the Center for Advanced Imaging (“CAI”)…