Antitrust Lawyer Blog

On June 19, the DOJ reached an agreement with Microsoft Corporation to resolve a complaint by Google regarding Microsoft’s desktop search function in Windows Vista. In a joint filing with the court, the DOJ, 17 state Attorneys General, and the District of Columbia said that the agreement, which aims to promote user choice, will resolve…

On June 6, following the NorVergence Inc. telecommunications fraud case won by the FTC in 2005, the agency charged a company with violating federal law by helping to finance the scheme and continuing to seek payment from defrauded consumers. In 2004, a federal court voided 1,600 NorVergence contracts with small businesses and religious and other…

On June 12, the DOJ, First Busey Corporation, a financial holding company headquartered in Urbana, Illinois, with approximately $2.5 billion in assets, and Main Street Trust Inc., a financial holding company headquartered in Champaign, Illinois with about $1.6 billion in assets, entered into a settlement where the parties agreed to sell five branch offices with…

On June 12, the FTC asked the court to halt the deceptive practices and misrepresentations and to freeze the BurnLounge’s assets, pending a trial, to preserve them for consumer redress. On June 6, 2007, the FTC filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against BurnLounge, Inc. The complaint…

On June 11, the DOJ issued a statement after announcing the closing of the investigation of CBOT Holdings Inc. by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. After an extensive investigation of both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (“CME”) proposed acquisition of CBOT and the 2003 agreement under which CME provides clearing services to CBOT, the Antitrust Division…

On June 5, the FTC authorized the staff to seek a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in federal district court to halt Whole Foods Market, Inc.’s approximately $670 million acquisition of its chief rival, Wild Oats Markets, Inc., pending an administrative trial on the merits. According to the complaint, the transaction would violate federal…

On June 4, the FTC entered into a settlement to resolve its concerns relating to Rite Aid Corporation’s proposed $3.5 billion acquisition of the Brooks and Eckerd pharmacies from Canada’s Jean Coutu Group (PJC), Inc. Rite Aid and Jean Coutu were required to sell 23 pharmacies to FTC-approved buyers in order to remedy the alleged…

On June 1, the DOJ announced the launch of a report on unilateral conduct laws, the initiation of a project to develop recommendations on substantive merger analysis, and the sixth annual International Competition Network (“ICN”) conference in Moscow took significant steps toward strengthening antitrust convergence. The ICN conference, hosted by Russia’s competition authority, the Federal…

On May 31, the Monsanto Company and Delta & Pine Land Company (“DPL”) were required to divest a significant seed company, multiple cottonseed lines, and other valuable assets in order to proceed with their $1.5 billion merger. Monsanto was also required to change certain license agreements as a condition for proceeding with its acquisition of…

On May 31, the FTC asserts that public agencies can help reduce the incidence and impact of identity theft. The FTC, in a discussion with the Ohio Privacy and Public Records Access Study Committee in Columbus, also affirms that government agencies should limit the amount of information they collect, restrict access to the information, and…