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
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 Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) recent winning streak in its ongoing challenges of hospital and physician mergers has, at least for now, ended in a Philadelphia U.S. district court. After six days of evidentiary...more
On September 29, 2020, Judge Sarah Pitlyk, a 2019 Trump appointee to the Eastern District of Missouri, granted the Federal Trade Commission’s request for a preliminary injunction barring two thermal coal producers, Arch...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
You don’t think of sports website FanGraphs as a go-to source for legal analysis. But in a provocative April 30th post by Nathaniel Grow,...more
In broad language, a Third Circuit panel affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a monopoly suit against Uber Technologies Inc. (“Uber”). Philadelphia Taxi Association Inc. v. Uber Technologies Inc., Case No. 17-1871 (3rd...more
A private home health care agency’s attempted monopolization suit against a dominant public hospital system and its home health care agency will move forward following a federal district court’s denial of the defendant...more
3/15/2018
/ Anti-Steering Rules ,
Anticompetitive Behavior ,
Antitrust Litigation ,
Competition ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare ,
Home Health Care ,
Hospitals ,
Judgment on the Pleadings ,
Medicare ,
Monopolization ,
Patient Referrals
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
In an opinion written by Judge Posner, the Seventh Circuit on Friday gave its stamp of approval to a “must-have” hospital’s bargaining to exclude competitors from certain narrow-network payor contracts in and around Peoria,...more
6/12/2017
/ Antitrust Violations ,
Appeals ,
Contract Terms ,
Exclusive Dealing Agreements ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance ,
Hospitals ,
Monopolization ,
Patients ,
Payor Contracts ,
Preferred Hospital Networks Arrangement ,
Richard Posner ,
Summary Judgment
After fending off a motion for judgment on the pleadings in March 2015, a small hospital in Peoria, Illinois lost on summary judgment in its $300 million antitrust suit alleging illegal exclusive dealing and attempted...more
10/5/2016
/ Antitrust Litigation ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Blue Cross ,
Blue Shield ,
Exclusive Dealing Agreements ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare ,
Hospitals ,
Monopolization ,
Summary Judgment
The mere possession of monopoly power does not violate federal antitrust laws. The laws only address the anticompetitive acquisition, maintenance, or abuse of that power. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) entered into a...more
The Sixth Circuit on Tuesday voted 2 to 1 to reverse a district court’s grant of summary judgment under which a defendant hospital network had been found to be a single entity incapable of conspiring with itself in an...more
An upstart rodeo association, created and owned by professional rodeo cowboys, challenged that its competitor’s bylaws aimed at the new association and its participants constituted agreements that unreasonably restrain trade...more
In June, an antitrust suit brought by plaintiff ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”) against a health system, health insurers, and a trade association survived a motion to dismiss. Last week, the ASCs’ case cleared the hump of...more
9/3/2015
/ Ambulatory Surgery Centers ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Conspiracies ,
False Statements ,
Insurance Industry ,
Joint Venture ,
Leave to Amend ,
Monopolization ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Sherman Act ,
Trade Associations
The situations where exclusive dealing policies, explicit or tied to an aggressive discounting program, cross the line under the rule-of-reason remain far from clear. Because it involved appellate review of a Federal Trade...more
On February 19, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that state-action immunity does not protect a state-created hospital authority from antitrust scrutiny over a proposed hospital merger where the anticompetitive...more