On September 10, eight Democratic Senators urged the heads of the FTC and DOJ’s Antitrust Division to investigate certain generative AI features used by dominant online platforms that may violate competition laws....more
This week, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reached one of its largest “gun jumping” settlements following allegations that sporting and entertainment events company, Legends Hospitality,...more
8/8/2024
/ Antitrust Division ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Gun-Jumping ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Negotiations ,
Neither Admit Nor Deny Settlements ,
Penalties ,
Sensitive Personal Information ,
Sports ,
Tunney Act
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 13, 2024, the Carnegie Endowment for Peace hosted Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission) Chair Lina Khan for a panel entitled “The Future of American Innovation.” The panel discussion, which broadly concerned...more
1. Following up on a December 2023 hearing on algorithmic price-fixing and self-preferencing, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced a...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced yesterday increased jurisdictional thresholds for premerger notification filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the “HSR Act”), as amended. The FTC...more
On December 18, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) (collectively, the “Agencies”) published the long-awaited final 2023 Merger Guidelines. The 2023 Merger Guidelines are informed...more
12/29/2023
/ Antitrust Division ,
Biden Administration ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Horizontal Mergers ,
Mergers ,
Private Equity ,
Request For Information ,
The Clayton Act ,
Transparency ,
Vertical Mergers
For years, the antitrust enforcement agencies have indicated their antipathy toward resolving competition issues in proposed mergers by entering into consent decrees that prohibit certain conduct, rather than stopping the...more
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ”), and the new proposed merger guidelines have all called out private equity transactions for particular scrutiny. The FTC just...more
8/22/2023
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Consent Order ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Divestment ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Private Equity Firms ,
Section 8 ,
Settlement ,
The Clayton Act ,
Unfair Competition
The Federal Trade Commission, in coordination with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, recently released a summary of the Agencies’ June 2022 joint workshop titled “The Future of Pharmaceuticals: Examining the...more
On March 16, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ Antitrust Division”) announced that a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging a former health care staffing executive of fixing wages for nurses....more
On August 26, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted 3-2 to authorize two new omnibus resolutions permitting compulsory process and to revise a third, which was approved last year. These resolutions allow FTC staff to...more
8/31/2022
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Investigations ,
Car Rentals ,
Civil Investigation Demand ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Enforcement ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Investigations ,
Mergers
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (“DOJ”) just announced that they will host a virtual workshop on December 6 and 7, 2021, to discuss the agencies’ efforts to promote...more
On July 9th, President Biden issued a broad-based Executive Order “to promote competition in the American economy.” In the White House’s own words...more
Earlier this week, Stone Canyon Industry Holdings LLC (“Stone Canyon”) and its portfolio company SCIH Salt Holdings Inc. (“SCIH”) reached a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to resolve its...more
On December 12, 2019, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice filed an antitrust case and simultaneous settlement against the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). The complaint alleged...more
Last month 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 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 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
As we reported in an earlier blog post, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice issued guidance in the waning days of the Obama administration reminding HR professionals and others that the antitrust laws could...more
2/13/2018
/ Antitrust Division ,
Consent Decrees ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
No-Hire/No-Solicitation Agreements ,
No-Poaching ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wage-Fixing
Although the Federal Trade Commission currently is short-handed with one Democrat and one Republican serving on the Commission (out of a normal lineup of five), today they showed that bi-partisan consensus still can exist in...more
On March 30, 2017, in a closely watched case, a federal district court denied the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings filed by Carolinas Healthcare against the DOJ Antitrust Division and State of North Carolina’s Complaint...more
4/3/2017
/ Anti-Steering Rules ,
Anticompetitive Behavior ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Contract Terms ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Health Insurance ,
Hospitals ,
Judgment on the Pleadings ,
Motion for Judgment ,
Pleadings ,
Restraint of Trade
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) accepted on Tuesday from Reynolds American Inc. (“Reynolds”) and Lorillard Inc. (“Lorillard”), subject to final approval, a Consent Order settling the agency’s significant competitive...more
5/30/2015
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Investigations ,
Consent Order ,
Divestiture ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Mergers ,
RJ Reynolds ,
Settlement Offer ,
The Clayton Act ,
Tobacco
From cassette tapes to CDs to Pandora and Spotify, innovations in the music field over the past two decades have drastically changed how people access music. Songwriters, however, are paid according to a system that has been...more
6/7/2014
/ Antitrust Division ,
ASCAP ,
BMI ,
Consent Decrees ,
Copyright ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Digital Assets ,
Licensing Rights ,
Music Industry ,
Pandora ,
Popular ,
Public Performance Rights ,
Publishing Copyrights ,
Royalties ,
Sound Recording Copyrights