Antitrust Lawyer Blog

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) sent letters on September 27, 2006 to 166 advertisers and 77 media outlets warning them that their advertisements targeting Hispanics are potentially deceptive. The ads were spotted during a one-day surf of Spanish-language newspaper, magazine, Internet, radio, and television advertisements by 60 partners around the United States and Latin America,…

On September 25, the FCC adopted its Eleventh Annual Report to Congress on the state of competition in the mobile telephone – or Commercial Mobile Radio Services (“CMRS”) – industry. This report examines the conditions prevailing in the CMRS marketplace in 2005.The FCC concluded that there is effective competition in the CMRS marketplace based on…

On September 20, 2006, the federal district court in Chicago ruled for the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) in its case against the marketers of the Q-Ray ionized bracelet following a bench trial earlier this summer. In a decision issued September 8, the court found that advertising by Que Te (Andrew) Park and his companies was…

On September 19, the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously reported on the nomination of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin for a second five-year term. Martin was approved following an off-the-floor markup held after the first vote on the Senate floor. According to Commerce Committee spokesman Joe Brenckle, the only senator to miss the 21-0 vote was Sen.…

The FCC’s first auction of Advanced Wireless Service (“AWS”) spectrum licenses ended on September 18. A total of 1,122 licenses were offered in the auction, and 104 bidders won 1,087 licenses. The AWS licenses can be used to provide any of a wide array of innovative wireless services and technologies, including voice, data, video, and…

On September 18, the DOJ announced that it filed a notice with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to dismiss its antitrust complaint regarding the potential acquisition of Falconbridge Limited by Inco Limited because Inco has formally abandoned its effort to acquire Falconbridge. The DOJ said that the lawsuit and proposed consent…

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) brought a permanent halt on September 14, 2006 to four illegal spamming operations – including one that offered the opportunity to “date lonely wives” and two that hijacked the computers of unwitting third parties and used them to pelt consumers with graphic sexually explicit e-mail. The FTC charged the operators…

On September 13, the competition regulator for the European Union clashed with Microsoft, this time over security upgrades in the company’s new Windows Vista operating system. The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, warned Microsoft against foreclosing competition in computer security by tying new security featrues into its Windows operating system. Both Symantec and…

On September 12, Deutsche Lufthansa said it would pay $85 million to settle 80 class-action lawsuits in the United States in a price-fixing inquiry involving its air cargo unit. The payment would release the airline and Swiss International Air Lines, which it is taking over, from pending lawsuits in the United States. The settlement is…

The European Commission (“EC”) enlarged the scope of its antitrust review of Intel on September 12 to investigate whether the company pressured an electronics retailer to exclude chips made by Advanced Micro Devices (“AMD”). The relationship between Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, and the retailer, the Media Market division of the German company Metro,…