Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
Competition
-
July 25, 2024
Bally's OKs Standard General's Takeover Valuing It At $4.6B
Bally's Corp. announced on Thursday its plans to merge with Standard General-owned The Queen Casino & Entertainment Inc., a regional casino operator, in a deal that values Bally's at $4.6 billion and was crafted by five law firms.
-
July 25, 2024
Deals Rumor Mill: Wiz-Google, Daily Telegraph, Medline IPO
Cybersecurity startup Wiz has rebuffed a buyout offer from Google, former British finance minister Nadhim Zahawi is preparing a $773 million bid for the Daily Telegraph, and medical supplies giant Medline is preparing an initial public offering for 2025. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.
-
July 25, 2024
Kroger, Albertsons Agree To Delay $25B Merger Closing
Kroger Co. and Albertsons said Thursday they agreed to delay closing on their $25 billion merger until after a judge rules on the merits of Colorado regulators' antitrust case, allowing the companies to avoid a two-week hearing next month.
-
July 25, 2024
4 Banks Ordered To Comply With UK Retail Competition Rules
HSBC, Lloyds, TSB and Allied Irish Banks have broken rules designed to help customers find the best deals, Britain's antitrust authority said Thursday, adding that it has ordered the lenders to comply with competition regulation.
-
July 24, 2024
FTC Chair Wary AI Tools Can Be Used For Corporate Collusion
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan weighed in on a host of topics during a discussion Wednesday at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference, expressing concerns about the agency's high legal bills for expert witnesses and describing AI price-setting tools as a potential loophole for collusion.
-
July 24, 2024
Even With Deal, Athletes Still Fighting For Share Of NCAA Pie
College athletes suing for a cut of NCAA television revenue in Colorado federal court have stressed that they will continue to litigate even if the settlement of a massive class action over name, image and likeness rights in California receives court approval.
-
July 24, 2024
Clinic Drops Case Against Maker Of Body-Sculpting Devices
BTL Industries Inc., a Massachusetts company that sells body-sculpting equipment, and a Connecticut aesthetic clinic have mutually agreed to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the Bay State company of using misleading profit projections and illegal trade restraints that unfairly penalized equipment buyers and caused hefty investments to wither.
-
July 24, 2024
DOJ Says NY Judge Muffed Standing In DirecTV Price-Fix Case
Paying inflated prices isn't the only way someone can be injured by price-fixing, and a New York federal court was wrong to rule that it was in a case brought by DirecTV over retransmission fees, the U.S. Department of Justice has told the Second Circuit.
-
July 24, 2024
Packaging Co. Can't Limit Rival's Sales In NC Biz Spat
The North Carolina Business Court on Wednesday refused to limit the clientele of a packaging company facing sales-poaching claims by a competitor, reasoning that the rival's lawsuit isn't likely to succeed.
-
July 24, 2024
Judge Sets Up 2-Tier Counsel Access In DOJ Live Nation Suit
A New York federal judge on Tuesday set up a two-tiered system for document access in the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, limiting sensitive information from other market participants from Live Nation in-house counsel.
-
July 24, 2024
Meme Stock Investor Opposes Robinhood Settlement For Now
A meme stock investor on Wednesday urged a Florida federal judge to deny a settlement between Robinhood and other traders who say they sustained losses when the exchange restricted trading of certain stocks during a social media fueled run, since he says he hasn't received any details on the deal.
-
July 24, 2024
Ex-SAP Exec Settles Whistleblowing Retaliation Suit
A former executive of software giant SAP has settled his retaliation and age discrimination claims, according to a Wednesday order by a Pennsylvania federal court.
-
July 24, 2024
Naval Engineers Urge 4th Circ. To Revive No-Poach Suit
A pair of former naval engineers have urged the Fourth Circuit to revive their proposed class action accusing military shipbuilding contractors and related firms of using secret "no-poach" agreements, saying their suit was wrongly ruled untimely amid a cover-up of the alleged scheme.
-
July 24, 2024
IPhone Users Push For Apple Docs On Korea, EU App Stores
Plaintiffs in the ongoing App Store antitrust suit are accusing Apple of stonewalling their effort to obtain documents detailing procompetitive changes the company made to the online marketplace in South Korea and Europe, saying the tech giant won't turn over the information because it'd undermine Apple's core defense.
-
July 24, 2024
Senate Dems Demand Scrutiny Of T-Mobile, UScellular Deal
T-Mobile's plan to buy the wireless operations of yet another mobile network operator — this time, United States Cellular Corp. — several years after it was allowed to merge with Sprint to become the third biggest carrier in the country is a bad idea, a handful of Democratic senators have told the U.S. Department of Justice and FCC.
-
July 24, 2024
Pawnshop Co. Says Military Law Doesn't Back CFPB's Suit
National pawnshop company FirstCash says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should drop certain claims in a suit accusing it of subjecting military families to predatory lending, arguing that the bureau has admitted it has no authority to bring certain claims under the law undergirding the allegations.
-
July 24, 2024
Aerospace Co. Says Engine Buybacks Aren't Anticompetitive
RTX Corp.'s subsidiary Pratt & Whitney urged a Pennsylvania federal court to toss a $450 million antitrust lawsuit from a "middleman" for used aircraft engine parts, arguing that Pratt & Whitney's decision to deal directly with numerous shops that break down old engines did not harm consumers or freeze the plaintiff out of the market.
-
July 24, 2024
CFIUS Reviews Slumped In 2023, Penalties Increased
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States experienced a significant drop in the number of cases it reviewed in 2023, but levied a record number of penalties last year, according to an annual report to Congress.
-
July 24, 2024
Last Holdouts Avoid Trial With Deal Over Chicken Price-Fixing
Chicken buyer plaintiffs say they've reached a settlement with Mountaire Farms and Koch Foods in their suit against the country's biggest broiler chicken producers for allegedly conspiring to raise prices, telling an Illinois federal judge to call off the trial that had been scheduled for September.
-
July 23, 2024
Knives Out For Another Pro-Agency Landmark After Chevron
Only weeks after U.S. Supreme Court conservatives took a hatchet to the judicial deference shown to federal agencies, right-leaning lawyers are imploring the justices to rock the administrative law realm again by gutting a New Deal-era precedent at the heart of the modern regulatory system.
-
July 23, 2024
Kroger And Colo. Talks To Avoid Merger Hearing Stall Out
Negotiations between Kroger Co. and Colorado enforcers to avoid an injunction hearing in the state's challenge to a $24 billion merger with Albertsons appeared to have stalled, prompting the grocers Tuesday to pitch a state judge on other options to avoid the fast-approaching proceeding.
-
July 23, 2024
FTC Won't Delay Challenge To Handbag Merger Either
The Federal Trade Commission has declined to pause its administrative challenge to the $8.5 billion handbag merger between the owners of Coach and Michael Koors, saying that even a district court refusal to temporarily enjoin the merger might not end the FTC's in-house case.
-
July 23, 2024
Nigeria Fines Meta $220M Over WhatsApp Privacy Policy
Nigerian regulators have hit Meta with a $220 million fine over alleged privacy and antitrust violations and ordered the company to stop sharing WhatsApp users' data with advertisers without express permission, the culmination of a nearly three-year-long investigative process.
-
July 23, 2024
Microsoft Calls FTC Price Hike Claims 'Misleading' At 9th Circ
Microsoft pushed back against the Federal Trade Commission's contention that an increase in the company's gaming subscription pricing is evidence of the anticompetitive effects of the software giant's $68.7 billion acquisition of game developer Activision Blizzard Inc., calling the commission out for trying to "reinvent" its case against the merger on appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
-
July 23, 2024
US, UK, EU Antitrust Enforcers Outline AI Principles
The top antitrust officials from the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission and the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority presented a unified international commitment Tuesday to closely monitor artificial intelligence technology and the companies that they warned could wield AI anticompetitively.
Expert Analysis
-
What TikTok's Race Against The Clock Teaches Chinese Firms
The Biden administration's recent divestiture deadline on TikTok parent ByteDance provides useful information for other China-based companies looking to do business in the U.S., including the need to keep products for each market separate and implement firewalls at the design stage, says Richard Lomuscio at Stinson.
-
Updated Federal Rules Can Improve Product Liability MDLs
The recent amendment of a federal evidence rule regarding expert testimony and the proposal of a civil rule on managing early discovery in multidistrict legislation hold great promise for promoting the uniform and efficient processes that high-stakes product liability cases particularly need, say Alan Klein and William Heaston at Duane Morris.
-
Lean Into The 'Great Restoration' To Retain Legal Talent
As the “great resignation,” in which employees voluntarily left their jobs in droves, has largely dissipated, legal employers should now work toward the idea of a “great restoration,” adopting strategies to effectively hire, onboard and retain top legal talent, says Molly McGrath at Hiring & Empowering Solutions.
-
Live Nation May Shake It Off In A Long Game With The DOJ
Don't expect a swift resolution in the U.S. Department of Justice's case against Live Nation, but a long litigation, with the company likely to represent itself as the creator of a competitive ecosystem, and the government faced with explaining how the ticketing giant formed under its watch, say Thomas Kliebhan and Taylor Hixon at GRSM50.
-
NCAA Settlement May End The NIL Model As We Know It
The recent House v. NCAA settlement in California federal court, in which the NCAA agreed to allow schools to directly pay March Madness television revenue to their athletes, may send outside name, image and likeness collectives in-house, says Mike Ingersoll at Womble Bond.
-
Opinion
The FTC And DOJ Should Backtrack On RealPage
The antitrust agencies ought to reverse course on their enforcement actions against RealPage, which are based on a faulty legal premise, risk further property shortages and threaten the use of algorithms that are central to the U.S. economy, says Thomas Stratmann at George Mason University.
-
Series
Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Atop the list of ways fishing makes me a better lawyer is the relief it offers from the chronic stress of a demanding caseload, but it has also improved my listening skills and patience, and has served as an exceptional setting for building earnest relationships, says Steven DeGeorge at Robinson Bradshaw.
-
Exploring Alternatives To Noncompetes Ahead Of FTC Ban
Ahead of the Sept. 4 effective date for the Federal Trade Commission's noncompete ban, employers should seek new ways to protect their proprietary and other sensitive information, including by revising existing confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements, says Harvey Linder at Culhane.
-
A Healthier Legal Industry Starts With Emotional Intelligence
The legal profession has long been plagued by high rates of mental health issues, in part due to attorneys’ early training and broader societal stereotypes — but developing one’s emotional intelligence is one way to foster positive change, collectively and individually, says attorney Esperanza Franco.
-
To Make Your Legal Writing Clear, Emulate A Master Chef
To deliver clear and effective written advocacy, lawyers should follow the model of a fine dining chef — seasoning a foundation of pure facts with punchy descriptors, spicing it up with analogies, refining the recipe and trimming the fat — thus catering to a sophisticated audience of decision-makers, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
-
Circuit Judge Writes An Opinion, AI Helps: What Now?
Last week's Eleventh Circuit opinion in Snell v. United Specialty Insurance, notable for a concurrence outlining the use of artificial intelligence to evaluate a term's common meaning, is hopefully the first step toward developing a coherent basis for the judiciary's generative AI use, says David Zaslowsky at Baker McKenzie.
-
A Look At M&A Conditions After FTC's Exxon-Pioneer Nod
The Federal Trade Commission's recent consent decree imposing several conditions on Exxon Mobil's acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources helps illustrate key points about the current merger enforcement environment, including the probability of further investigations in the energy and pharmaceutical sectors, say Ryan Quillian and John Kendrick at Covington.
-
Attys Beware 2 Commonly Overlooked NIL Contract Issues
As name, image and likeness deals dominate high school and collegiate sports, preserving a client's NCAA eligibility should be a top priority, so lawyers should understand the potentially damaging contract provisions they may encounter when reviewing an agreement, says Paula Nagarajan at Arnall Golden.
-
FTC Theories Of Harm After Anesthesia Co. Ruling
As Federal Trade Commission litigation against U.S. Anesthesia Partners proceeds following a Texas federal court's recent decision to dismiss a private equity sponsor from the suit, the case attempts to incorporate and advance some of the commission's theories of competitive harm from the final 2023 Merger Guidelines, say attorneys at Mintz.
-
FTC Focus: Exploring The Meaning Of Orange Book Letters
The Federal Trade Commission recently announced an expansion of its campaign to promote competition by targeting pharmaceutical manufacturers' improper Orange Book patent listings, but there is a question of whether and how this helps generic entrants, say Colin Kass and David Munkittrick at Proskauer.