Antitrust Lawyer Blog

A federal grand jury in San Francisco returned an indictment on October 18th against two executives from Samsung Electronics Ltd. (“Samsung”) and one executive from Hynix Semiconductor America Inc. (“Hynix America”) for their participation in a global conspiracy to fix DRAM prices.DRAM is the most commonly used semiconductor memory product, providing high-speed storage and retrieval…

The Commission charged on October 17 that Thermo Electron Corporation’s proposed $12.8 billion acquisition of Scientific International, Inc. would harm competition in the U.S. market for high-performance centrifugal vacuum evaporators (“CVEs”) in violation of the antitrust laws. Thermo and Fisher are the only two significant suppliers of high-performance CVEs in the United States and the…

On October 12, the FCC released a Notice of Inquiry for its Annual Assessment of the Status of Competition in the Market for the Delivery of Video Programming, as required by Congress. The Notice of Inquiry, which seeks comment and information on competition in the video programming market, is designed to assist the FCC with…

On October 9th, the European Commission cleared the proposed acquisition of joint control by Arcelor Profil Luxembourg and SNCFL of CFL Cargo, by way of purchase of shares. The Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.Andre Barlow 202-589-1838

On October 6, the FCC ended its investigation into Time Warner Cable’s (“Time Warner”) decision in August to drop the NFL Network without providing appropriate notice to subscribers. The FCC reached a consent decree in which Time Warner agreed that it violated an FCC rule that requires cable operators to provide customers 30 days notice…

On October 5, an Internet business that advertised and sold consumers’ phone records and records of credit card accounts to third parties agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated federal law. The settlement bars the defendants from obtaining or selling consumers’ confidential phone and credit account records unless authorized by law or…

On October 3, the Federal Trade Commission announced its decision to intervene in the formation of United Launch Alliance, L.L.C. (ULA), a proposed joint venture between The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation. The FTC’s complaint alleges that by combining the only two suppliers of U.S. government medium to heavy (MTH) launch services the joint…

On October 2, the FCC consented to the applications filed in connection with the proposed acquisition of Midwest Wireless Holdings, LLC (“Midwest Wireless”) by ALLTEL Communications, Inc. (“ALLTEL”), subject to certain conditions. ALLTEL provides wireless communications services to approximately 11 million wireless customers in 35 states. Midwest Wireless is a wireless provider with more than…

On September 28, the DOJ announced that it filed a notice with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to dismiss its antitrust complaint challenging the potential acquisition of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PSEG) by Exelon Corp. Exelon formally abandoned its effort to acquire PSEG, and therefore the lawsuit and proposed consent…

On September 27, five major cable companies asked the FCC for conditions on AT&T’s merger with BellSouth to ensure that the combined phone giants cannot discriminate against cable’s competing digital-phone service. The cable companies seeking these conditions were Advance/Newhouse Communications, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems, Cox Communications and Insight Communications.Each introduced voice over Internet protocol (“VoIP”)…