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Competition
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June 19, 2013
11th Circ. Clarifies Statute Of Limitations For Bribery
The Eleventh Circuit upheld the convictions Wednesday of three Florida maintenance workers involved in an alleged pay-to-play conspiracy with two hospitals and ruled that a bribery scheme's five-year statute of limitations clock starts to tick when a bribe is paid, not when it's agreed upon.
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June 19, 2013
FTC's Wright Proposes Limit To Section 5 Authority
After attorneys spent years unsuccessfully pushing the Federal Trade Commission to formally explain how expansively it views its power to police unfair competition, Republican Commissioner Joshua Wright tried to jump-start the process Wednesday, prodding Chairwoman Edith Ramirez with proposed guidance that would limit the FTC's Section 5 authority.
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June 19, 2013
Sens. Say Pay-For-Delay Legislation Still Needed
Even though the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled Monday that pay-for-delay deals can violate antitrust laws, legislators trying to stop the pharmaceutical patent settlements have said in recent days that the decision doesn't go far enough and vowed to press ahead with legislative fixes.
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June 19, 2013
Miami Billboard Owner Appeals Grant Of Permit To Rival
Carter Outdoor Advertising on Wednesday asked a Florida appeals court to vacate a decision revoking its permit to operate a billboard in Miami and granting it to competitor CBS Outdoor Inc., saying that the judge never gave Carter a chance to argue its case.
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June 19, 2013
Players In CityTime Kickback Scandal Cop Pleas
Three women pled guilty in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday to crimes linked to the alleged kickback scheme surrounding CityTime, the massive New York City payroll software project.
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June 19, 2013
Ex-VA Medical Center Director Indicted In Bribery Scheme
The former director of the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center has been indicted on 36 counts for allegedly taking bribes in exchange for influence over certain development projects and decisions involving the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cleveland said Wednesday.
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June 19, 2013
US Air, American Execs Defend Merger Against Senate Grilling
Senior executives for US Airways Group Inc. and American Airlines Inc. told a Senate subcommittee Tuesday that they shouldn't have to divest aircraft slots as part of their planned $11 billion merger, while lawmakers and others expressed concerns about overconsolidation at Reagan National Airport and labor unrest among US Airways pilots.
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June 19, 2013
BSkyB Draws UK Antitrust Probe Over Sports Channel Supply
The U.K.'s telecommunications regulator said Wednesday it has opened a probe to determine if British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC exploited its dominance in the pay television market by placing conditions on the wholesale supply of two sports networks to British Telecommunications PLC.
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June 19, 2013
Judge Gives Final OK To $35M GSK Flonase Settlement
A Pennsylvania federal judge Wednesday gave final approval to a $35 million settlement ending a class action alleging GlaxoSmithKline PLC used improper means to block its rivals from bringing generic versions of its allergy medication Flonase to market.
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June 19, 2013
EU Antitrust Watchdog Raids Train Cargo Cos.
Antitrust regulators in the European Union said Wednesday that they had raided several companies in the market for train cargo transportation services based on suspicions that the companies took part in a cartel.
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June 19, 2013
Justices At Odds With 3rd Circ. On Pay-For-Delay, Merck Says
Merck & Co. Inc. told the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday that its recent ruling that so-called pay-for-delay deals can violate antitrust laws was inconsistent with the standard used by the Third Circuit when it found such an agreement entered by Merck was anti-competitive.
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June 19, 2013
Apple Says E-Book Prices Dropped After IBookstore Launch
An expert witness for Apple Inc. on Wednesday challenged the U.S. Department of Justice's price-fixing case against the iPad maker, testifying in New York that digital book prices have decreased since it launched the iBookstore in 2010 as the closely watched antitrust trial wound down.
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June 19, 2013
Covington Fights Doc Request In Prograf Antitrust Row
Covington & Burling LLP said Tuesday that certain evidence requested in Massachusetts federal court by a class of direct purchasers is not relevant to multidistrict antitrust litigation accusing Astellas Pharma US Inc. of delaying entry of a generic version of the immunosuppressant Prograf.
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June 19, 2013
EU Fines Lundbeck $125.6M In Pay-For-Delay Probe
The European Commission hit Danish H. Lundbeck A/S on Wednesday with $125.6 million in fines after finding that the drugmaker didn't lawfully protect its patents but instead violated antitrust rules by paying off generics competitors to keep cheaper versions of its antidepressant citalopram off the market.
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June 18, 2013
EU High Court Says Legal Advice No Antitrust Defense
The European Union's highest court ruled Tuesday that a group of Austrian freight forwarders couldn't avoid antitrust punishment by claiming they had relied on advice from their lawyers or a national competition court that their joint pricing efforts didn't violate the bloc's cartel ban.
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June 18, 2013
5 Arguments To Look For In Pay-For-Delay Cases
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that pay-for-delay deals may violate antitrust law, it largely left it up to the lower courts to figure out how to make the traditional rule-of-reason analysis work for the pharmaceutical patent settlements. Here are a few arguments to look out for as trial courts struggle to weigh the pros and cons of the controversial agreements.
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June 18, 2013
Paul Hastings Snags Top Securities Atty From Fried Frank
Paul Hastings LLP on Tuesday said it has nabbed a former head of Fried Frank’s securities and shareholder litigation practice — who also comes with real estate litigation, antitrust and white collar expertise — to join the firm as a partner in its New York office.
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June 18, 2013
Barnes & Noble Exec Backs Apple's E-Book Defense
A Barnes & Noble Inc. executive testified Tuesday in New York that the retailer considered implementing a business model that would have let publishers raise digital book prices before Apple Inc. did so, supporting Apple's defense in the final week of an antitrust trial over alleged e-book price-fixing.
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June 18, 2013
Tesoro To Shed Assets To Close $355M Chevron Pipeline Buy
The Federal Trade Commission said Monday it would allow Tesoro Corp. to move forward with its $355 million purchase of certain Chevron Pipe Line Co. assets after Tesoro agreed to sell a petroleum terminal in Boise, Idaho, to allay the regulator's antitrust worries.
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June 18, 2013
Ex-FTC Chief Leibowitz Joins Davis Polk's Antitrust Practice
Former Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who helped guide the agency to a favorable U.S. Supreme Court decision on pay-for-delay and prepare it for a host of looming consumer privacy fights, said Monday he has joined Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP's Washington antitrust and transactional practice as a partner.
Expert Analysis
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Evaluating Pay-For-Delay Deals After FTC V. Actavis
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, anticipation of potentially extensive litigation under a full-blown rule-of-reason approach may affect the characteristics of reverse payment settlements and whether the parties choose to settle at all, say members of Cornerstone Research and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP.
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UK Joint Ventures: Sanctions And Corruption Risks
What should be at the forefront of the mind of any in-house counsel or compliance officer whose company operates in joint ventures is section 7 of the U.K. Bribery Act, which holds that an organization does not even need to be aware of corrupt conduct in order to be guilty of an offense, say attorneys with Dechert LLP.
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How EU Competition Law Applies To Data Collection Issues
So far, the European Commission has not reviewed a case where the accumulation or the manipulation of data was used to allegedly hamper competition. But the "essential facilities" case law developed by the commission for the last 20 years with respect to nonmaterial facilities should enable it to take a balanced approach in evaluating these cases, say Philippe Rincazaux and David Dubois of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
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High Court Brings Economics Back To Pay-For-Delay Analysis
In its much-anticipated decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court rejected both the “scope of the patent” approach to analysis of pay-for-delay deals and the FTC’s proposed presumption of illegality, putting the question squarely back where it belongs — on rigorous analysis of the economic effects of the settlement agreement at issue, say Sumanth Addanki, Alan Daskin and Christine Meyer of NERA Economic Consulting.
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How To Get A Pass When A Corruption Problem Occurs
Companies that can demonstrate a truly proactive approach to anti-corruption compliance — both before a problem arises and after an allegation is received — can help themselves obtain the much-desired “declination" from the U.S. government. While a declination can never be guaranteed, companies should take steps now to maximize their options, say attorneys with Paul Hastings LLP.
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How Far Patent Licensors Can Go In US, China And Korea
International patent licensing can be challenging. In the U.S., most licensing arrangements are analyzed under the rule of reason, which can create uncertainty. In China, there are multiple sources of law and a lack of precedent. And in Korea, legality turns on whether the restraint is reasonably related to a legitimate business justification, says Koren Wong-Ervin, a consultant in the Office of International Affairs at the Federal Trade Commission.
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Debate Over New GTLD Applications Won't End Soon
Throughout the generic top-level domain application process, applications for generic and legally defined terms have been the source of significant debate, and new developments show that the debate may continue — possibly even after the process ends, says Heather Nolan of InfoLawGroup LLP.
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Now Open: Floodgates To Price Advertisement Cases
The Ninth Circuit's recent opinion in Hinojos v. Kohl’s definitely hurts retailers who have advertised "original" prices that were never actually in place and makes them vulnerable to being hit with a class action. This decision may also be used by plaintiffs to bring more unfair competition claims, say attorneys with Sedgwick LLP.
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Class Arbitration Is Back In Arbitrators’ Hands
Arbitrators can still interpret contracts pretty much any way they want, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter. The holding should come as no great surprise as it reflects decades of federal arbitration law, yet the unanimous ruling is a surprise, given what preceded it, says Christopher King of Homer Bonner Jacobs.
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Cable Networks, Distributors Face Tough Carriage Disputes
The recent decisions in Comcast Cable Communications LLC v. Federal Communications Commission and Sky Angel U.S. LLC v. National Cable Satellite Corporation underscore the rigorous review carriage dispute claims receive and provide insight into how such claims may be treated by courts and the FCC in the future, says Burt Braverman of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.