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
During the course of the Biden Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have demonstrated an invigorated and sustained policy interest in increasing competition across various...more
2/7/2023
/ Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Biden Administration ,
Competition ,
Corporate Practice of Medicine ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Priorities ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Mergers ,
Policy Statement ,
Trade Associations
The Biden Administration's aggressive antitrust enforcers have trained their sights on private equity companies. They have signaled through enforcement activities, formal policy statements and informal interviews and speeches...more
1/19/2023
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Biden Administration ,
Competition ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Divestiture ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Enforcement Priorities ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ,
Mergers ,
Private Equity ,
Private Equity Firms ,
Public Policy ,
The Clayton Act ,
Veterinarians
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) held the final installment of their "listening tour" on May 12, 2022, focused on the firsthand effects of mergers and...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) held another installment of their "listening tour" on April 27, 2022,1 with a focus during this session on the media and...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) continued their online listening tour on April 14, 2022, with a discussion regarding the effects of mergers and acquisitions on the healthcare industry...more
4/20/2022
/ Acquisitions ,
Antitrust Provisions ,
Corporate Practice of Medicine ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement ,
Enforcement Priorities ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Health Care Providers ,
Hospital Mergers ,
Industry Consolidation ,
Mergers ,
Vertical Integration
Federal antitrust enforcement in the agricultural industry had been little more than a whisper for decades. The Obama Administration announced it was making agricultural antitrust enforcement a priority and then held...more
On November 5, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a message to which everyone in the government contracting, federal grant and program funding worlds should pay attention to by announcing the creation of a "Procurement...more
11/13/2019
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Bid Rigging ,
Department of Defense (DOD) ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
DOJ Strike Force ,
FBI ,
Federal Contractors ,
Federal Funding ,
Federal Procurement Systems ,
General Services Administration (GSA) ,
Strategic Enforcement Plan
Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court found in FTC v. Actavis, 570 U.S. 136 (2013), that large and unjustified payments from a brand pharmaceutical manufacturer to prevent generic entry can provide a basis for an antitrust...more
The DOJ's Antitrust Division sent a powerful message to the business community yesterday when it sued railroad equipment suppliers Knorr-Bremse AG and Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation (Wabtec) for entering into...more
4/4/2018
/ Antitrust Violations ,
Consent Decrees ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
No-Poaching ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements