Practice Areas
Competition
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February 22, 2012
Microsoft Hits Motorola, Google With EU Antitrust Action
Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday lodged a competition complaint with the European Commission against Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and its soon-to-be parent Google Inc., alleging Motorola is trying to block sales of Microsoft products that allow wireless viewing of video via the Internet.
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February 22, 2012
Feds Say Foreign Auto Co. Fails To Grasp Sherman Act
Prosecutors on Tuesday scoffed at a bid by Taiwanese company Eagle Eyes Traffic Industrial Co. Ltd. and others to nix allegations they had conspired to fix prices for replacement vehicle lights, saying the auto part makers fundamentally misunderstood the Sherman Act.
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February 22, 2012
Ex-Army Major's Wife Sentenced For Role In Bribe Plot
An Illinois federal judge sentenced the wife of a former U.S. Army National Guard major to probation and home detention Wednesday for concealing cash that her husband, previously sentenced to five years in prison, received through a government contracts bribery scheme in Afghanistan.
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February 22, 2012
Cobalt Reveals FCPA Probe Of Angola Oil Business
U.S. regulators have launched a formal probe into allegations that one of Cobalt International Energy Inc.’s oil drilling contractors bribed foreign officials in Angola, Cobalt said Tuesday.
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February 22, 2012
J&J Backs Down To EU Over $21B Synthes Deal
Johnson & Johnson has offered unnamed concessions meant to ease the European Commission's antitrust concerns over the company's proposed $21.3 billion acquisition of leading orthopedic device maker Synthes Inc., the regulator said on Wednesday.
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February 22, 2012
Spanish Antitrust Regulator Fines Endesa €23M
Spain's competition authority on Wednesday slapped Endesa SA, one of the country’s largest power utilities, with €23 million ($30 million) in fines for allegedly abusing its dominant market position in the electricity sector.
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February 22, 2012
Ex-KBR Exec Gets Probation, Fine For Nigerian Bribes
A former executive for one-time Halliburton Co. subsidiary KBR Inc. was sentenced Wednesday in Texas federal court to one year of unsupervised probation and a $20,000 fine for his part in a scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials for natural gas contracts.
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February 22, 2012
Judge Narrows Jaco's Targets In LCD Price-Fixing Case
A California federal judge on Wednesday refined Jaco Electronics Inc.'s antitrust claims in multidistrict litigation against a slew of liquid crystal display panel makers, clarifying that Jaco is only allowed to recover damages from entities directly involved in the massive price-fixing conspiracy.
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February 22, 2012
T-Mobile Wants FCC To Block Verizon's $4B Spectrum Buys
T-Mobile USA Inc. told the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday that Verizon Wireless' efforts to snatch up wireless spectrum licenses from Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc. and others for about $3.9 billion would harm competition and consumers.
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February 21, 2012
Kolon's Recusal Bid In DuPont Antitrust Case Falls Short
A Virginia federal judge refused to recuse himself Tuesday from Kolon Industries Inc.'s antitrust and trade secrets cases against DuPont Co., saying Kolon had waited too long to criticize his stint as an attorney for McGuireWoods LLP when the firm represented DuPont in a 1985 patent suit.
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February 21, 2012
MGA's $1B Bratz Antitrust Suit Against Mattel Jettisoned
A California federal judge on Tuesday tossed MGA Entertainment Inc.'s $1 billion antitrust lawsuit claiming Mattel Inc. tried to sabotage its Bratz doll line, ruling that MGA's claims had already been litigated during the companies’ ongoing intellectual property war.
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February 21, 2012
Plaintiffs' Experts Will Testify In LCD Screen MDL: Judge
A California federal judge has greenlighted the testimony of two expert economists in multidistrict litigation alleging a major price-fixing conspiracy in the liquid crystal display panel industry, ruling Tuesday the LCD makers failed to establish that the experts' findings should be barred.
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February 21, 2012
Allergan, Others Sought Pinkeye Treatment Monopoly: Suit
Generic pharmaceutical manufacturer Apotex Inc. launched a suit in Delaware Thursday accusing Allergan Inc. and two Japanese drug manufacturers of pinkeye medication Zymar of creating a monopoly over the medication and creating a new version of the treatment to eliminate generic competition.
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February 21, 2012
UK's Antitrust Cop Flags Anglo American, Lafarge JV
The U.K.'s antitrust watchdog on Tuesday threatened to take action against a joint venture by Anglo American PLC and Lafarge SA, saying the merger could damage the construction materials markets in the country by substantially reducing competition.
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February 21, 2012
US Chamber, Others Seek Clarity On FCPA Enforcement
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 33 other business organizations on Tuesday sent a letter to the federal government seeking explanations of various provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, saying a lack of clarity is bad for business.
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February 21, 2012
Aetna Fires Back At Blue Cross Over Mich. Antitrust Suit
Aetna Inc. on Friday fired back at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan's attempt to dismiss an antitrust suit claiming that Blue Cross has dominated Michigan's insurance market through exclusionary hospital agreements that have driven up prices and hurt competition.
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February 21, 2012
Feds Give Up On Massive Gabon FCPA Case
The federal government on Tuesday dropped its vast Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case accusing more than 20 military equipment industry executives of bribing Gabonese officials to win business, ending years of unsuccessful prosecution and dealing a major setback to the U.S. Department of Justice.
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February 21, 2012
Omnicare Abandons $441M Offer To Buy PharMerica
Omnicare Inc. has dropped its plan to purchase PharMerica Corp. in a $440.8 million hostile takeover after the Federal Trade Commission moved last month to block the deal amid concerns the merger would harm competition, the would-be buyer said Tuesday.
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February 17, 2012
SEC Subpoenas Halliburton Over FCPA Probe
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has hit Halliburton Co. with a subpoena related to a company investigation into its Angolan operations for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the energy services giant disclosed Thursday.
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February 17, 2012
$7.9B Exelon-Constellation Merger Wins Md.'s OK
Maryland regulators on Friday approved Exelon Corp.'s proposed $7.9 billion merger with Baltimore's Constellation Energy Group Inc., finding concessions the companies accepted in a deal with the governor in December will help protect consumers from their increased market power.
Expert Analysis
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Case Study: Bunk V. Birkart
The recent decision in the Eastern District of Virginia in Bunk v. Birkart Globistics demonstrates the pitfalls for relators and for the government itself in actively pursuing False Claims Act claims in the absence of provable damages, say attorneys with Vinson & Elkins LLP.
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Deal Market Trends For 2012
While the M&A market recovery lost steam in the second half of 2011, corporations and private funds still have capital to deploy, leading pundits and practitioners alike to be cautiously hopeful that the M&A market in 2012 may show signs of renewed vitality. With that in mind, we look back at 2011 for lessons learned in the M&A space with implications for the coming year, say David Fox and Daniel Wolf of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
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Stop The Madness (Before It Starts): UCL Abstention
When plaintiffs try to use California's Unfair Competition Law claims to enforce statutory schemes that are too complex or too undefined to support judicial enforcement, defendants may be able to invoke the doctrine of abstention. There are three themes that stand out as potentially winning defense strategies, say attorneys with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
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Marubeni — Extending FCPA's Jurisdictional Reach
In its case against Marubeni Corp., it is possible that the U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to expand the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's jurisdictional reach through the use of aiding and abetting charges, say Daniel Levison and Jarod Taylor of Morrison & Foerster LLP.
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Law School, Meet Litigation PR ...
The single most important thing law schools can do to manage their reputations in the face of litigation is apply the lessons learned from Wall Street during the recent financial crisis and strive for transparency in all communications. One need only look to Goldman Sachs’ woes or the struggles of Jon Corzine’s MF Global as examples of the catastrophic results of a campaign based on anything but complete honesty, says Spencer Baretz of Hellerman Baretz Communications.
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Making It Easier To Whistle While You Work
Like Pakistan, South Korea, Hungary and the U.K., modern, aggressive cartel enforcement in the U.S. should include a whistleblower reward program for those uninvolved in or on the periphery of a cartel. This fairly simple measure has the potential to detect and deter cartel activity to the same or even greater degree as the corporate leniency program, says Marlene Koury of Constantine Cannon LLP.
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Why Competition Fails In The Online Advertising Market
People should care about Google Inc.'s dominance of the online advertising marketplace not because advertisers are facing monopoly pricing — although that is a policy concern — but because Google’s business model is based on systematically stripping away user privacy to maintain its dominance, says Nathan Newman of Tech-Progress.org.
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10 Lessons From 2011 Enforcement Activity
The cases brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2011 solidify the SEC's and the DOJ's well-settled positions on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement. There are 10 lessons from these actions that are likely to influence how 2012 will unfold, say Claudius Sokenu and Arthur Luk of Arnold & Porter LLP.
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'Independent Practice,' Collective Enforcement
In North Texas Specialty Physicians v. Federal Trade Commission, the Fifth Circuit has affirmed the FTC's decision that collective rate negotiation within an independent practice association is illegal under an "inherently suspect" analysis, providing fertile ground for payers to receive meaningful relief from the FTC if they suspect collective negotiation, says Ryan Marth of Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP.
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Failure Of Proof: US V. O'Shea
In U.S. v. O’Shea, the acquittal of a former ABB Ltd. manager of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations appears to serve as a reminder of the difference between information that may be a powerful lever in bringing about a guilty plea and evidence that is required to prevail at trial, say attorneys with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.