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Competition
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Featured
DOJ's Google Ad Tech Suit Bound For Sept. Trial
A Virginia federal judge said Friday that the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit accusing Google of monopolizing technology used to place ads on third-party websites will go to trial, finding too many factual disputes to let the search giant nix the case.
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July 11, 2024
Tempur Sealy, Mattress Firm Blast FTC's Merger Challenge
Tempur Sealy and Mattress Firm fired back at the Federal Trade Commission's bid to block a proposed merger between the mattress companies, contending in separate filings that the FTC's ambiguous allegations require tossing the agency's administrative complaint.
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July 11, 2024
Kroger Asks To Delay At Least Part Of FTC Challenge
Kroger and Albertsons are asking an administrative law judge from the Federal Trade Commission to pause the evidentiary portion of the agency's in-house case against the supermarket giants' merger, saying the companies are facing too many overlapping cases in different venues to adequately prepare and present their case.
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July 11, 2024
Apple Ducks iPhone Web App Antitrust Suit, For Now
Consumers will have to rejigger their proposed antitrust class action alleging Apple anticompetitively prevents iPhones from running web-based apps that don't need to be downloaded, after a California federal judge said Thursday that they've failed to show a conspiracy or connect the dots from company rules to customer injury.
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July 11, 2024
Pfizer's $50M EpiPen Deal Gets Final OK In Antitrust Suit
Pfizer is officially out of a lawsuit accusing it of working with Mylan Pharmaceuticals to inflate the price of the popular auto-injecting emergency allergy medication EpiPen after a Kansas federal judge gave the $50 million settlement his final seal of approval.
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July 11, 2024
Attys Say Milberg Must Pay For Fraud In Visa, Mastercard MDL
Class counsel representing plaintiffs in long-running multidistrict litigation accusing Visa and Mastercard of charging improper merchant fees have called for sanctions against Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman LLC, laying out arguments for a fee reimbursement after the firm admitted to mistakenly registering fraudulent clients.
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July 11, 2024
Calif. Nabs $50M Deal With Oil Traders In Gas Price-Rigging Suit
California secured a $50 million settlement with oil trading companies Vitol and SK Energy, resolving allegations that the companies schemed to artificially inflate gas prices in the Golden State after an Exxon Mobil Corp. refinery exploded in 2015, California's attorney general announced Wednesday.
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July 11, 2024
Judge Won't Dismiss Cannabis Extraction IP Dispute
Subsidiaries of Canadian cannabis company Halo Collective Inc. can't escape patent infringement claims by a Colorado-based firm specializing in developing techniques for extracting hemp oil, a California federal judge has ruled, rejecting a slew of motions seeking summary judgment.
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July 11, 2024
FERC 'Waiting For Me To Die' With Late Order, Utility Atty Says
Counsel for the Louisiana Public Service Commission told the Fifth Circuit on Thursday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is "waiting for me to die" as it delays issuing a compliance order to System Energy Resources Inc., saying the agency was doing irreparable harm to consumers.
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July 11, 2024
Fed. Circ. Pauses Ouster Of Teva Patents From Orange Book
Teva can keep challenged asthma inhaler device patents listed on, and protected by, an important government database after the Federal Circuit agreed Wednesday to pump the brakes on the patents' delisting while the Israeli drugmaker appeals an order won by Amneal in an infringement lawsuit.
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July 11, 2024
Calif.'s Insulin Cost Suit Belongs In Fed. Court, 9th Circ. Told
Express Scripts and Caremark PCSHealth urged the Ninth Circuit on Thursday to reverse a lower court's order sending California's antitrust suit over skyrocketing insulin prices back to state court, with both appellants' counsel arguing the state's claims involve disputes over federal contracts and regulations that must be resolved in federal court.
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July 11, 2024
Security Manager Gave $85M Biz Book To Rival Co., Suit Says
A former Connecticut regional manager spent days downloading "extensive" data before leaving a security firm for a direct competitor, then gave his new employer millions of dollars' worth of stolen secrets to snipe clients and bolster his chances for earning a lucrative bonus, according to a new suit filed in federal court.
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July 11, 2024
NASL Said Soccer Orgs. Have No Legal Basis For Ruling Redo
The North American Soccer League told a New York federal court that it should not revisit its decision to keep alive an antitrust lawsuit against MLS and the sport's U.S. governing body because not liking the outcome is not a valid reason for a review.
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July 11, 2024
Platinum Equity Taking Heroux-Devtek Private In $990M Deal
Platinum Equity Advisors has agreed to purchase Heroux-Devtek in a take-private deal that values the Quebec-based manufacturer of aerospace products at CA$1.35 billion ($990.1 million), Heroux-Devtek said in a statement Thursday.
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July 11, 2024
Clemson Can't Toss ACC's Media Rights Suit From NC Court
Clemson University has come up short in its attempt to end the Atlantic Coast Conference's suit over media rights and conference exit fees after a North Carolina state judge ruled that as an ACC member, the university had given conference leaders the right to sue in the state.
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July 11, 2024
Atty's Suit Against Aircraft Cos., Blank Rome Attys Survives
A federal judge ruled in favor of a lawyer who alleges that aircraft companies and attorneys with Blank Rome LLP brought a baseless lawsuit against her in retaliation for switching from corporate defense to the plaintiffs bar, denying a motion to dismiss and allowing her lawsuit to continue.
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July 11, 2024
Chancery Fast-Tracks Blue Cross Data Co. Suit, Denies TRO
An independent licensee of Blue Cross Blue Shield Association that accused a customer of sharing confidential data with industry competitor Cigna Corp. got its Delaware Chancery Court lawsuit fast-tracked Thursday but failed to get immediate injunctive relief because the harms it alleged were too "speculative."
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July 11, 2024
Volvo Wasn't Properly Served In Cartel Case, ECJ Says
The European Union's top court ruled Thursday that Volvo was not validly served when documents were sent to its Spanish subsidiary, in a major setback for a competition damages claim in the Iberian country.
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July 10, 2024
Drug Pricing, Overreach Dominate IP Disclaimer Feedback
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has received heated feedback regarding its proposal to make follow-on patents easier to invalidate, with drug pricing advocates applauding it, top technology and pharma companies decrying it, and high-profile officials calling the proposal an overstep of the agency's authority.
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July 10, 2024
FTC Must Think Hard Before Trying More Rules, Commish Says
One of the Federal Trade Commission's recently confirmed Republican commissioners called on the agency Wednesday to take a close look at how courts handle its ban on employment noncompete clauses before considering any further attempts at pushing the bounds of its regulatory authority.
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July 10, 2024
Major Cable Group Opposes FirstNet Bid For 4.9 GHz Manager
Cable trade group NCTA is urging the Federal Communications Commission to listen to the chorus of public safety groups who have been pushing hard against the idea of making AT&T's FirstNet the national manager of the 4.9 gigahertz public safety band.
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July 10, 2024
GOP Bombards Agencies With Demands After Chevron's End
Republican leaders of major congressional committees Wednesday demanded details from dozens of agencies on policies suddenly shrouded in uncertainty after U.S. Supreme Court conservatives overturned the so-called Chevron doctrine, which for 40 years gave regulators flexibility in rulemaking and advantages in related litigation.
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July 10, 2024
Meijer Says Takeda Can't Force Antitrust Suit Into Arbitration
Meijer argued before a Massachusetts federal court that Takeda waited far too long to try to force the supermarket chain to arbitrate its proposed class action accusing the Japanese pharmaceutical company of conspiring to delay a generic version of its anti-constipation drug Amitiza.
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July 10, 2024
NFL Asks Court Not To Act On Sunday Ticket Judgment
The NFL urged a California federal judge Tuesday to hold off on any entry of judgment enshrining a jury's blockbuster $4.7 billion antitrust verdict against the league over the DirecTV Sunday Ticket package, arguing there are outstanding issues to be decided that make partial judgment now impractical.
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July 10, 2024
Pokemon Go Maker Escapes Gaming Patent Suit
A California federal judge has let the developer of smartphone game Pokemon Go out of a patent infringement suit, deciding that a patent related to augmented reality technology covers an abstract idea.
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July 10, 2024
Thoma Bravo's Qualtrics Bid Fell Short, SAP Tells Chancery
Thoma Bravo LP may have offered $1.2 billion more than Silver Lake Management to buy Qualtrics International Inc. from software company SAP SE in 2023, but other aspects of the bid were less attractive than Silver Lake's $12.5 billion offer, an attorney for SAP directors told Delaware's Court of Chancery on Wednesday.
Editor's Picks
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FTC's Bedoya Says Labor Concerns In Mergers Matter
Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya said Friday that it's important for enforcers to consider the impact mergers can have on labor, even if they never did in the past, contending that concentration can lead to lower wages and dangerous working conditions.
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What We've Learned From Biden-Era Merger Remedies
Amid the Biden administration's uniquely aggressive merger regime, companies making deals face much higher hurdles convincing competition enforcers to accept divestitures, licensing deals or other remedies designed to address antitrust concerns. However, officials have provided a few clues about what settlements they'll accept and when.
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Antitrust Cases And Issues To Watch In 2024
A string of cases testing the limits of antitrust law when it comes to Big Tech are among the developments practitioners are watching in 2024, as well as cases targeting information-sharing schemes and private equity investments and investigations of the real estate and alcoholic beverage industries.
Expert Analysis
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Opinion
States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
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FBI Raid Signals Growing Criminal Enforcement Of Algorithms
The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division's increased willingness to pursue the use of algorithmic pricing as a potential criminal violation means that companies need to understand the software solutions they employ and stay abreast of antitrust best practices when contracting with providers, say attorneys at Rule Garza.
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Series
Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.
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What UK Digital Markets Act Will Mean For Competition Law
The new Digital Markets Act’s reforms will strengthen the Competition and Markets Authority's investigatory and enforcement powers across its full remit of merger control and antitrust investigations, representing a seismic shift in the U.K. competition and consumer law landscape, say lawyers at Travers Smith.
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Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
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Realtor Settlement May Create New Antitrust Pitfalls
Following a recent antitrust settlement between the National Association of Realtors and home sellers, practices are set to change and the increased competition may benefit both brokers and homebuyers, but the loss of the customary method of buyer broker compensation could lead to new antitrust concerns, says Colin Ahler at Snell & Wilmer.
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In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.
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Preparing For CFPB 'Junk Fee' Push Into Mortgage Industry
As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau considers expanding its "junk fee" initiative into mortgage closing costs, mortgage lenders and third parties must develop plans now that anticipate potential rulemaking or enforcement activity in this space, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.
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Series
After Chevron: FTC's 'Unfair Competition' Actions In Jeopardy
While the U.S. Supreme Court's decision ending Chevron deference will have limited effect on the Federal Trade Commission's merger guidelines, administrative enforcement actions and commission decisions on appeal, it could restrict the agency's expansive take on its rulemaking authority and threaten the noncompete ban, say attorneys at Baker Botts.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.
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Series
Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.
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Opinion
Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron
The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.
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3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron
The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
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Series
After Chevron: Expect Few Changes In ITC Rulemaking
The U.S. Supreme Court's opinion overruling the Chevron doctrine will have less impact on the U.S. International Trade Commission than other agencies administering trade statutes, given that the commission exercises its congressionally granted authority in a manner that allows for consistent decision making at both agency and judicial levels, say attorneys at Polsinelli.