On Monday, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a 277-page opinion finding Google liable for monopolizing the general search services and general search text ads markets....more
On March 1, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted a Statement of Interest (SOI) in the case Duffy v. Yardi Systems Inc., et al.
In this SOI, the agencies...more
Welcome to this week's issue of AI: The Washington Report, a joint undertaking of Mintz and its government affairs affiliate, ML Strategies. This week, we discuss the Senate Judiciary Committee’s December 13, 2023 hearing...more
12/20/2023
/ Algorithms ,
Amicus Briefs ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Data Collection ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Price-Fixing ,
Sherman Act ,
Summary of Consumer Rights
Since the beginning of Chair Khan’s tenure at the Federal Trade Commission (and in line with President Biden’s aim to curb rising health care costs), the current FTC has committed to bring enforcement actions against health...more
On July 25, 2022, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a civil complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland alleging that poultry processors, Cargill Inc. and Cargill...more
8/3/2022
/ Anti-Competitive ,
Civil Conspiracy ,
Compensation ,
Consent Decrees ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Employee Benefits ,
Meat Processing Plants ,
Poultry ,
Price-Fixing ,
Sensitive Business Information ,
Sherman Act ,
Trade Associations ,
Wage and Hour
Avanci’s pool retains its 5th Circuit win, in a slightly different way, after an unusual turn of events where the panel rescinded its prior opinion and issued a new one. The new opinion affirms the district court’s ruling...more
On Tuesday, September 21, 2021, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the state attorneys general of Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and...more
Last week was momentous for the Federal Trade Commission. First, the campaign use antitrust to reign in “Big Tech” faced a setback as the United States District Court for District of Columbia dismissed the FTC’s suit against...more
7/13/2021
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Big Tech ,
Competition ,
Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Google ,
Instagram ,
Monopolization ,
Sherman Act ,
Social Media ,
WhatsApp
The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced yesterday a criminal indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas, Nevada charging a health care staffing company and its former manager of entering into and engaging in...more
4/2/2021
/ Antitrust Conspiracies ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Indictments ,
No-Poaching ,
Sherman Act ,
Staffing Agencies ,
Wage-Fixing
Last week, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced the criminal indictment of Surgical Care Affiliates LLC (“SCA”), an Alabama- and Illinois-based company, which owned and operated outpatient medical centers around the...more
Just when observers thought Qualcomm could celebrate its successful litigation with Apple another decision has come down which could have major implications for Qualcomm’s business going forward.
In much-anticipated 233-page...more
5/28/2019
/ Antitrust Litigation ,
FRAND ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
IP License ,
Monopolization ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Popular ,
Qualcomm ,
Sherman Act ,
Standard Essential Patents ,
Telecommunications
On March 14, 2019, a California state court denied Sutter Health’s motion for summary judgment on claims of alleged price tampering and combination to monopolize under California’s Cartwright Act, the state’s principal...more
3/28/2019
/ Anticompetitive Behavior ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Cartwright Act ,
Case Consolidation ,
Healthcare Costs ,
Hospitals ,
Intent ,
Monopolization ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Price-Fixing ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Restraint of Trade ,
Self-Insured Health Plans ,
Sherman Act ,
State Attorneys General ,
Vertical Restraints
In a long-running antitrust case, the Eleventh Circuit recently denied defendant Blue Cross Blue Shield’s interlocutory appeal of the district court’s ruling that certain allegedly restrictive practices of defendants must be...more
12/18/2018
/ Antitrust Litigation ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Blue Cross ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
IP License ,
Per Se Rule ,
Price-Fixing ,
Rule-of-Reason Analysis ,
Sherman Act ,
Standard of Review ,
Trademarks
The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) announced a proposed settlement in its anti-steering case against Atrium Health (formerly known as Carolinas HealthCare System) (“Atrium”). US v. The...more
The Third Circuit reinstated an antitrust suit brought by a medical device seller that alleged Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and five of its member insurance plan administrators shut out the seller by conspiring to deny...more
The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced a new initiative to terminate “legacy” antitrust judgments that “no longer protect competition.” In 1979, the DOJ adopted a general practice to include sunset provisions that...more
Since 2013, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has faced a series of purported class actions consolidated in the U.S. District Court in Alabama. In a recent decision focused upon the appropriate standard of review, the...more
4/16/2018
/ Antitrust Litigation ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Best Efforts Clauses ,
Blue Cross ,
Health Care Providers ,
License Agreements ,
Mergers ,
Multidistrict Litigation ,
Per Se Rule ,
Price-Fixing ,
Rule-of-Reason Analysis ,
Sherman Act ,
Single Entity Rule ,
Standard of Review
A physician organization has failed to sufficiently plead that a physician certification group caused an unreasonable restraint of trade through its actions to promulgate its certification program. Last week, a district court...more
Residents of a small Nashville suburb, Thompson’s Station, were given a second opportunity to litigate their antitrust actions against local developer Carbine & Associates, LLC (“Carbine”), Crystal Clear Communications...more
On October 23, 2017, a company that developed software to track and trace pharmaceuticals filed a complaint against a pharmaceutical distributors trade association that currently dominates the market for such software,...more
After five years of growth through a series of acquisitions, the Washington State Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit to thwart and unwind the most recent expansion efforts of Franciscan Health System (“CHI Franciscan”)...more
9/13/2017
/ Acquisitions ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Attorney General ,
Consumer Protection Act ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Costs ,
Merger Controls ,
Price-Fixing ,
Sherman Act ,
State Antitrust Claims ,
The Clayton Act
On the eve of trial, and after years of litigation (including an appeal to the Sixth Circuit), all claims by Dayton, Ohio hospital The Medical Center at Elizabeth Place (“MCEP”) against Premier Health Partners (“Premier”)...more
8/17/2017
/ Antitrust Violations ,
Appeals ,
Boycotts ,
Dismissal With Prejudice ,
Health Care Providers ,
Hospitals ,
Joint Venture ,
Per Se Rule ,
Rule-of-Reason Analysis ,
Sherman Act ,
Standard of Review ,
Vertical Restraints
A federal district court denied summary judgment motions brought by both sides in the government’s antitrust suit against a Michigan hospital alleging an agreement not to compete in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act....more
6/7/2017
/ Advertising ,
Anti-Kickback Statute ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Attorney General ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Hospitals ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
ProMedica ,
Sherman Act ,
Summary Judgment
Last week, in In re Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (“Second Circuit”) vacated a $147 million jury award against Chinese vitamin C sellers Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co. and...more
The Third Circuit reminds, “[i]n antitrust suits, definitions matter.” Last week, in applying that maxim, the court affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a suit filed by a hospital against a competing hospital and physician...more