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Competition
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July 19, 2024
Boehringer Looks To Toss Inhaler Antitrust Case
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. urged a Massachusetts federal court to toss a proposed class action accusing it of blocking generic versions of two inhaler medications, saying it has valid patents protecting the products.
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July 19, 2024
Elite Schools' $284M Aid-Fixing Deals Get Final OK
An Illinois federal judge on Friday granted his final signoff to $284 million worth of settlements inked by 10 schools accused in a sprawling antitrust case of working together to limit the financial aid they provided, deeming it a fair and reasonable outcome for the class of students.
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July 19, 2024
What The End Of Chevron Means For FTC Rulemaking
Federal agencies can no longer expect courts to defer to their interpretation of challenged regulatory authorities under a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling the Federal Trade Commission expects will have no "significant impact," but that observers say could help trip up a noncompetes ban and perhaps other efforts.
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July 19, 2024
FTC Eyes Mid-Nov. Texas Hearing Against Mattress Merger
The Federal Trade Commission's case against Tempur Sealy's $4 billion planned Mattress Firm purchase is set to kick off in Texas federal court Nov. 14, the parties told an agency in-house judge Friday during a scheduling hearing.
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July 19, 2024
Temple U.'s Ken Jacobsen On NCAA-House Deal, What's Next
Even with a deal of such size and consequence — approximately $2.8 billion, more than 184,000 athletes in the class, all the Power Five conferences named and with decades of court rulings leading up to it — the settlement over name, image and likeness compensation in the Grant House-led class action against the NCAA is best seen as a beginning, rather than an end.
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July 19, 2024
Axon Says FTC Has 'No Reason' To Wade Into Suit
Axon urged a New Jersey federal judge Thursday to "give no weight" to a Federal Trade Commission amicus intervention into a proposed class action against the company, arguing that however much the FTC bristles at references to an abandoned merger case, that consternation isn't relevant to the instant suit.
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July 19, 2024
Shoemaker Asks Court To Trim Birkenstock Copycat Claim
A judge said Friday that she couldn't tell the difference between several popular styles of Birkenstock sandals and alleged "knockoff" versions made by a New Hampshire company based on photos, signaling potential trouble for the defendant in a trademark infringement lawsuit by the German footwear-maker.
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July 19, 2024
San Francisco Lawmaker Floats Rent Algorithm Software Ban
A San Francisco lawmaker proposed a ban that would prohibit selling or using software that can be used for rent price fixing, and took aim at property management software companies such as RealPage and Yardi for their software allegedly being used for such a purpose.
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July 19, 2024
MLS, US Soccer Can't Get Redo On Antitrust Suit Preservation
A New York federal judge told Major League Soccer and the sport's U.S. governing body that he would not reconsider a previous order that kept alive an antitrust suit against the organizations, but he did offer some of the clarification they were seeking about market definition.
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July 19, 2024
FTC Says Microsoft Price Hike Shows Activision Deal Harm
The Federal Trade Commission told the Ninth Circuit that Microsoft's recently announced Game Pass price increase is an example of the harm caused by the company's $68.7 billion acquisition of game developer Activision Blizzard Inc.
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July 19, 2024
Judge Recuses As Tech Firm Slams Dow Chemical's Request
An Ohio federal judge has recused himself from a trade secrets case brought against Dow Chemical Co. after the technology firm that sued it showed the court a settlement offer without approval that would grant Dow Chemical's recusal motion, which the tech firm said was a "cavalier approach to a drastic remedy."
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July 19, 2024
Occidental Could Sell $3.6B CrownRock Stake To Ecopetrol
Occidental Petroleum said in a securities filing Friday that it could sell a 30% stake in CrownRock — which Occidental is under contract to buy for $12 billion — to Columbia's Ecopetrol for $3.6 billion.
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July 19, 2024
OK Foods, Consumers Reach Deal In Chicken Price-Fixing Suit
Consumers accusing the nation's largest broiler chicken producers of coordinating and limiting chicken production to raise prices have told an Illinois federal judge that they've reached a settlement in principle with O.K. Foods, O.K. Farms and O.K. Industries.
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July 19, 2024
Taxation With Representation: A&O Shearman, Gibson Dunn
In this week's Taxation With Representation, Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. buys Stelco Holdings Inc., KBR acquires LinQuest Corp., Blue Owl Capital Inc. purchases Atalaya Capital Management LP, and Amphenol Corp. buys two mobile networks units from CommScope.
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July 19, 2024
UK Clears Nationwide's £2.9B Purchase Of Virgin Money
The competition regulator of the U.K. said Friday that it has cleared Nationwide Building Society's acquisition of Virgin Money UK PLC for £2.9 billion ($3.7 billion), which the companies say would create a combined group with assets of approximately £366 billion.
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July 19, 2024
UK Clears Roche's $295M Purchase Of Diagnostics Biz
The U.K. antitrust watchdog said Friday that it has cleared a $295 million proposed purchase by Swiss drugmaker Roche of parts of diagnostic company LumiraDx.
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July 18, 2024
Epic Says Apple's 'Strategic Delay' Tactics Still Ongoing
The ongoing fight between Epic Games and Apple over the tech giant's compliance with a court order meant to open up app payment competition showed little sign of abating as Epic continued to blast Apple for slow and incomplete production.
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July 18, 2024
Live Nation Previews Part Of Case Against DOJ Suit
Live Nation and Ticketmaster have teed up part of their fight against an antitrust lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and multiple state attorneys general, arguing that the state law claims are "threadbare" and that a chunk of the DOJ case amounts to trying to force them to deal with competitors.
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July 18, 2024
LegitScript Asks 9th Circ. To Ax Price-Checker Antitrust Suit
LegitScript has told the Ninth Circuit that PharmacyChecker cannot bring antitrust claims for allegedly having its price-checking website blacklisted because the bulk of its business is geared towards helping people illegally import prescription drugs.
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July 18, 2024
Chancery Strains To Unwrap Shareholder's Amazon Order
A Delaware Chancery Court vice chancellor struggled on Thursday to wrap her head around a shareholder's demand for corporate documents to probe antitrust allegations at Amazon.com Inc. after a magistrate's report found the shareholder had not presented enough evidence to force the retailer to open its books.
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July 18, 2024
Sunday Ticket Customers Slam NFL's Bid To Upend $4.7B Win
DirecTV Sunday Ticket subscribers opposed the NFL's effort to vacate a $4.7 billion antitrust verdict handed down by California federal jurors last month, arguing on Wednesday the league cannot second-guess the jury's findings and that the plaintiffs actually received far less than what they sought.
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July 18, 2024
Truck Buyers Seek To Stop Cartel 'Picking Off' Claimants
A trade group suing major truck makers in a £2 billion ($2.6 billion) class action over an alleged price-fixing cartel told a London tribunal on Thursday the manufacturers should be prevented from making the group claim unviable by "picking off" claimants through settlement offers.
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July 18, 2024
Meta And FTC Want DC Circ. Privacy Fight Kept Paused
Meta's D.C. Circuit bid to stop the Federal Trade Commission from modifying the parties' $5 billion privacy settlement should be kept on ice, both sides said Thursday, as the commission vies to toss Meta's trial court suit following a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
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July 18, 2024
Vermont Suit Accuses PBMs Of Price-Fixing
Vermont's attorney general filed suit against pharmacy benefit managers Express Scripts and CVS Wednesday, accusing the companies of abusing their market power to drive up prescription costs for consumers and squeezing out price competition from small pharmacies.
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July 18, 2024
King & Spalding Guides Quanta's $1.5B Cupertino Buy
Houston-based Quanta Services Inc. said Thursday it has acquired fellow energy infrastructure provider Cupertino Electric Inc. for up to $1.54 billion, with King & Spalding LLP and Fenwick & West LLP providing legal counsel on the deal, respectively.
Expert Analysis
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FTC AI Inquiry Signals Intensified Focus On Emerging Tech
The Federal Trade Commission's recent inquiry into investments and partnerships between Big Tech companies and artificial intelligence startups appears to be directed at guiding future enforcement decisions in competition, privacy and consumer protection — and three principles discussed at a related tech summit give insight on the agency's approach, say attorneys at Skadden.
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Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout
While attorney burnout remains a perennial issue in the legal profession, shifting post-pandemic expectations mean that law firms must adapt their office cultures to retain talent, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.
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Assessing Merger Guideline Feedback With Machine Learning
Large language modeling appears to show that public sentiment matches agency intent around the new merger control guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Justice Department, says Andrew Sfekas at Cornerstone Research.
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Series
Competing In Dressage Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My lifelong participation in the sport of dressage — often called ballet on horses — has proven that several skills developed through training and competition are transferable to legal work, especially the ability to harness focus, persistence and versatility when negotiating a deal, says Stephanie Coco at V&E.
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What Cos. Evaluating M&A Can Glean From Latest HSR Report
The recently released Hart-Scott-Rodino report for fiscal year 2022 helps unearth important data points for companies as they evaluate potential transactions, including that, despite a historically low enforcement rate, the number of actions exceeds the number of second requests for the first time in nearly 20 years, say Ryan Quillian and John Kendrick at Covington.
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Algorithmic Pricing Programs Caught In Antitrust Crosshairs
The Justice Department's investigation into software company RealPage follows a host of federal antitrust cases alleging that property owners and casino hotel operators use the same proprietary software programs to fix and maintain pricing, which means algorithmic pricing programs are considered a key price-fixing tool in the digital age, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.
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The Legal Industry Needs A Cybersecurity Paradigm Shift
As law firms face ever-increasing risks of cyberattacks and ransomware incidents, the legal industry must implement robust cybersecurity measures and privacy-centric practices to preserve attorney-client privilege, safeguard client trust and uphold the profession’s integrity, says Ryan Paterson at Unplugged.
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UK Court Ruling Reinforces CMA's Info-Gathering Powers
An English appeals court's recent decision in the BMW and Volkswagen antitrust cases affirmed that the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority can request information from entities outside the U.K., reinstating an important implement in the CMA's investigative toolkit, say lawyers at White & Case.
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5 Reasons Associates Shouldn't Take A Job Just For Money
As a number of BigLaw firms increase salary scales for early-career attorneys, law students and lateral associates considering new job offers should weigh several key factors that may matter more than financial compensation, say Albert Tawil at Lateral Hub and Ruvin Levavi at Power Forward.
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How Biotech Deals May Help Competition, Despite FTC View
The Federal Trade Commission's complaint against Sanofi's proposed partnership with Maze Therapeutics highlights increasing skepticism of so-called killer acquisitions, but a closer look reveals potentially legitimate reasons behind why entities might decide to delay or abandon the development of acquired products, say consultants at Analysis Group.
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New SDNY Whistleblower Program May Be A Game-Changer
A new pilot program in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York promises to immunize from prosecution certain individuals who blow the whistle on financial crimes and corruption, and if similar self-disclosure programs are any indication, this significant new policy may measurably increase white collar investigations, say attorneys at Paul Hastings.
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Series
Playing Competitive Tennis Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My experience playing competitive tennis has highlighted why prioritizing exercise and stress relief, maintaining perspective under pressure, and supporting colleagues in pursuit of a common goal are all key aspects of championing a successful legal career, says Madhumita Datta at Lowenstein Sandler.
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Series
The Pop Culture Docket: Judge Djerassi On Super Bowl 52
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Ramy Djerassi discusses how Super Bowl 52, in which the Philadelphia Eagles prevailed over the New England Patriots, provides an apt metaphor for alternative dispute resolution processes in commercial business cases.
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Unraveling The Bundled Benefits Of Retail Memberships
The recent prevalence of paid retail memberships and the associated findings of a consumer survey suggest that assessing consumer preferences and welfare may be important when considering resolution mechanisms in antitrust contexts, say Rosa M. Abrantes-Metz at Berkeley Research Group, Mame Maloney at The Brattle Group and Jeff Brazell at the University of Utah.
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Changes To Note In New AAA Mass Arbitration Rules
The American Arbitration Association updated its mass arbitration rules earlier this month — clarifying issues that were previously being litigated in front of the AAA, and significantly streamlining the process of getting to a merits arbitration for claimants who have suffered similar wrongs and are bound by mandatory arbitration clauses, say attorneys at Labaton Keller.