Google is so ubiquitous it's both a noun and a verb, and nearly everyone's search engine of choice. As a result, the landmark antitrust case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and several states (collectively, the...more
4/16/2025
/ Abuse of Dominance ,
Antitrust Litigation ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Commercial Contracts ,
Competition ,
Consumer Privacy Rights ,
Contract Terms ,
Data Privacy ,
Data-Sharing ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Google ,
Monopolization ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Remedies ,
Search Engines
A Look at How Future Disclosures Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act Could Be Affected -
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Jan. 14, 2025, brought an action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York...more
Amended Complaints from DOJ, DC AG Reveal Enforcers' Views of Limits on Permissible Use of Pricing Software -
The new year brought significant new changes to the still-developing collusion-by-algorithm litigation...more
With President Joe Biden's departure, aggressive antitrust enforcers at the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will hand over the reins to incoming Trump...more
1/13/2025
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Biden Administration ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Deregulation ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Horizontal Mergers ,
Mergers ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Technology ,
Trump Administration
Starting in October 2022, companies that use software to assist in setting prices for their products have faced an avalanche of litigation claiming that the common use by competitors of the same pricing software inflates...more
12/6/2024
/ Algorithms ,
Antitrust Division ,
Bid Rigging ,
Class Action ,
Collusion ,
Data Collection ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Price-Fixing ,
Sensitive Personal Information ,
Sherman Act ,
Software ,
Technology Sector
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) prevailed in the first round of its much-criticized challenge to Tapestry Inc.'s acquisition of Capri Holdings Limited. Tapestry owns the Coach brand, and Capri owns the Michael Kors and...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted unanimously on Oct. 10, 2024, to substantially amend the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act (HSR) premerger notification rules, HSR form and instructions, expanding the scope of information and...more
10/16/2024
/ Acquisitions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Effective Date ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Mergers ,
Pre-Merger Filing Requirements ,
Premerger Notifications ,
Required Documentation ,
Threshold Requirements
As Holland & Knight's Antitrust Team previously reported, the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada in May 2024 dismissed with prejudice a putative class action alleging that a handful of Las Vegas hotel operators...more
Since early September 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) presented its case-in-chief against Google in a lawsuit accusing the company of anti-competitive and monopolistic practices in the complex digital advertising...more
It has been almost two years since private plaintiffs initiated the first antitrust class action cases against RealPage and owners and managers of multifamily apartment buildings, alleging collusion by algorithm in the use of...more
8/27/2024
/ Algorithms ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Litigation ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Class Action ,
Collusion ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Investigations ,
Multidistrict Litigation ,
Sherman Act
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are increasingly finding themselves defending decisions to list in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Orange Book patents that they assert are associated with their products. The...more
6/25/2024
/ Antitrust Litigation ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
FTC Act ,
Manufacturers ,
Orange Book ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Section 2 ,
Section 5 ,
Sherman Act ,
Teva Pharmaceuticals
District Court Ruling Shows that the "Failing Firm" Defense Isn't a Total Failure -
In FTC v. Community Health Systems Inc. & Novant Health Inc., No. 5:24-cv-0028 (W.D.N.C.), Judge Kenneth D. Bell of the U.S. District...more
In Federal Trade Commission v. U.S. Anesthesia Partners, Inc. et al., a federal district court granted private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe's motion to dismiss it from the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC)...more
A Nevada federal court on May 8, 2024, dismissed with prejudice a putative class action alleging that a handful of Las Vegas hotel operators and a software provider broke antitrust laws by licensing and using a software...more
5/17/2024
/ Algorithms ,
Amended Complaints ,
Confidential Information ,
Dismissal With Prejudice ,
Dismissals ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Hotels ,
Price-Fixing ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Sherman Act ,
Software
The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on March 28, 2024, weighed in for the third time in recent months in support of plaintiffs in class action lawsuits challenging the defendants' use of software to...more
4/25/2024
/ Algorithms ,
Anti-Competitive ,
Antitrust Division ,
Caesars ,
Casinos ,
Class Action ,
Conspiracies ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hotels ,
Popular ,
Pricing ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Rental Property ,
Rental Rates ,
Sherman Act
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a new rule on April 23, 2024, banning new non-compete agreements in all employment contexts. The highly anticipated rule, which was first proposed in draft form in January 2023, is...more
4/25/2024
/ Biden Administration ,
Chamber of Commerce ,
Contract Terms ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Unfair Competition
As Holland & Knight observed previously, the Biden Administration's antitrust enforcers have trained their sights on private equity firms and their portfolio companies, including in a Sept. 21, 2023, lawsuit challenging one...more
3/8/2024
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Asset Management ,
Biden Administration ,
Corporate Practice of Medicine ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Health Care Providers ,
Horizontal Merger Guidelines ,
Popular ,
Private Equity ,
Private Equity Firms ,
Public Comment ,
Request For Information
After "an extensive public consultation process" since late July 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division on Dec. 18, 2023, jointly announced the release of final Merger...more
12/21/2023
/ Acquisitions ,
Anticompetitive Agreements ,
Antitrust Division ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Joint Statements ,
Joint Venture ,
Limited Liability Company (LLC) ,
Merger Reviews ,
Mergers ,
Ownership Interest ,
Partnerships ,
Risk Assessment ,
Vertical Mergers
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on Sept. 27, 2023, granted summary judgment against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in its challenge to the acquisition of three hospitals in Louisiana pursuant...more
In a growing trend, states are enacting laws modeled after the federal Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act, which requires parties to proposed transactions that satisfy certain reporting thresholds to first provide information to the...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Sept. 21, 2023, sued a private equity firm in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas over an alleged decade-long "roll-up" strategy to consolidate anesthesiology...more
9/27/2023
/ Acquisitions ,
Anticompetitive Behavior ,
Antitrust Division ,
Corporate Practice of Medicine ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
FTC Act ,
Health Care Providers ,
Industry Consolidation ,
Monopolization ,
Physicians ,
Private Equity ,
The Clayton Act
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on July 19, 2023, jointly announced the release of proposed Merger Guidelines that would expand significantly the number and types of transactions...more
7/25/2023
/ Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Comment Period ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Merger Reviews ,
Mergers ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Section 7 ,
The Clayton Act
In this episode of "Counsel That Cares," antitrust attorney David Kully and labor and employment attorney Mark Peters take a deep dive into the latest updates regarding non-solicitation and non-compete agreements in the...more
6/29/2023
/ Antitrust Division ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Healthcare ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Proposed Rules ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
State Bans
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on June 27, 2023, announced its intention to increase the cost and burden of its regulatory processes, which might prevent many even benign and procompetitive mergers and acquisitions (M&A)...more
The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have in recent years prioritized in their antitrust enforcement activities protecting workers from alleged anticompetitive...more