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Competition
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April 05, 2024
NC High Court Snapshot: Law Firm Battles Defamation Suit
The Supreme Court of North Carolina has a stacked calendar heading into spring arguments, from an appeal over Black-owned properties targeted for demolition to a law firm's attempt at dodging defamation claims over allegations of voter fraud.
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April 05, 2024
IP Firm Sues Florida Attorney For Using Soundalike Name
Georgia-based intellectual property firm Bekiares Eliezer LLP has sued an attorney in Florida federal court, alleging he marketed his services with a name similar to its "Founders Legal" brand.
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April 05, 2024
US Gas Cos. Delay $7.4B Deal Closing Date Amid FTC Scrutiny
A month after a group of 50 lawmakers urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate a recent string of mergers and acquisitions in the oil industry, the regulatory agency is putting Chesapeake Energy and Southwestern Energy's planned $7.4 billion merger under the microscope.
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April 04, 2024
Punishing Docs' Statements Chills Free Speech, 5th Circ. Told
A right-leaning nonprofit sparred with a group of specialty medical boards and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in front of the Fifth Circuit during oral arguments Thursday, saying that revoking doctors' medical licenses in retaliation for public statements on issues like abortion chills free speech.
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April 04, 2024
ISP Tells FCC Bulk Billing Deals Are Pro-Consumer
An internet service provider is trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission that banning bulk billing in apartment buildings is not the way to go and that the arrangements are actually a "key tool for closing the digital divide."
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April 04, 2024
Crypto Bank, Chair Blast FTX Investors' 'Gatling Gun' Claims
A crypto bank and its chairman have urged a Florida federal judge to toss a second amended complaint from FTX investors alleging they helped Sam Bankman-Fried abscond with $8 billion in customer assets, saying the investors "employ a Gatling gun approach to pleading."
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April 04, 2024
Caterpillar 'Talking Out Both Sides,' Judge Says
A Delaware federal judge chastised Caterpillar Inc. ahead of trial in a series of orders mostly siding with claims from a defunct construction equipment supplier accusing the company of pressuring an online auctioneer to break an important contract with the would-be competitor.
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April 04, 2024
Athletes Say NCAA's Own Actions Prove NIL Rules No Good
Athletes suing the NCAA over restrictions on the use of their names, images and likenesses are seeking summary judgment, arguing the practice dampens competition with no legitimate justification and that the organization's own actions have shown that to be true.
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April 04, 2024
FCC's Net Neutrality Plan Leaves Network 'Slicing' Uncategorized
The Federal Communications Commission will not automatically apply net neutrality rules to 5G mobile network "slices" when a plan to reimpose the rules on broadband service comes up for an agency vote later this month, but also said slices cannot be used to evade the regulations.
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April 04, 2024
Novo Holdings, Catalent Reset Review Clock On $16.5B Deal
Novo Nordisk Foundation has given the Federal Trade Commission more time for an initial review of Novo Holdings' plan to acquire Catalent in a deal that values the pharmaceutical services company at $16.5 billion.
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April 04, 2024
Structure Defense Remains In FTC Hospital Case, But Not Hearing
When the Federal Trade Commission goes to trial April 29 against an allegedly anti-competitive hospital merger, the agency won't have to contend with defense assertions that its structure is unconstitutional right away, but a North Carolina federal judge refused Thursday to scrub them entirely.
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April 04, 2024
Mattress Co. Can Redo Conspiracy Suit After 10th Circ. Trip
A Utah federal judge has rejected arguments from leading mattress manufacturers that a competitor is too late to amend an antitrust lawsuit alleging the spread of false information, saying a Tenth Circuit appeal prevented the competitor from updating its claims sooner.
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April 04, 2024
Wash. AG Defends Authority To Block Kroger-Albertsons Deal
The Washington Attorney General's Office has told a state court that a local consumer protection law allows it to bring actions challenging anti-competitive mergers and urged the court to reject contentions from Kroger and Albertsons that the state lacks authority to block a nationwide deal.
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April 04, 2024
Judge Recuses Herself From Cartel Case Over Exxon Stock
A Nevada federal judge has recused herself from a batch of antitrust lawsuits claiming U.S. shale oil producers colluded with OPEC to drive up prices at the pump, citing her ownership of a "significant" amount of Exxon Mobil Corp. stock.
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April 04, 2024
MLB's Athletics To Play In Sacramento Before Move To Vegas
The Oakland Athletics will play the 2025 to 2027 seasons in Sacramento's 14,000-capacity minor-league ballpark while their planned stadium in Las Vegas is built, the franchise and Major League Baseball announced Thursday morning, officially making this season the team's last in Oakland after 57 years.
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April 04, 2024
Boston Scientific's $3.7B Axonics Buy Under FTC Microscope
Biomedical engineering company Boston Scientific Corp. on Thursday disclosed that the Federal Trade Commission requested more information on its planned $3.7 billion acquisition of medical technology company Axonics, which will result in a delay in the deal's closing.
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April 04, 2024
Deals Rumor Mill: Alphabet, Honeywell, Syngenta IPO
Google parent Alphabet is exploring whether to make an offer to acquire software company HubSpot; Chinese regulators encouraged pesticides giant Syngenta to pull its $9 billion IPO over concerns it could unsettle China's volatile market, and Honeywell wants to sell its personal protective equipment unit. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.
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April 04, 2024
Stagecoach Poised To Settle In £93M Train Ticket Class Action
Train operator Stagecoach is seeking to end its role in a £93 million ($118 million) collective action brought on behalf of passengers who allegedly paid double for their journeys, documents published by the Competition Appeal Tribunal on Thursday reveal.
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April 04, 2024
UK Deepens Probe Into Vodafone-Three Telecoms Merger
Britain's antitrust authority said Thursday that it has launched an in-depth probe into plans by Vodafone and Three to merge their U.K. telecommunications networks to create a £16.5 billion ($21 billion) mobile operator after the companies failed to alleviate competition concerns.
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April 03, 2024
FTC Won't Overlook 'Unanticipated' Harms, Slaughter Says
The Federal Trade Commission won't hesitate to go after companies and their executives that fail to take steps to address the broad range of privacy harms and other risks that can arise from the emergence of new digital technologies, particularly in the wake of a recent federal court ruling that backed this theory, Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter said Wednesday.
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April 03, 2024
Antitrust Suits Remain Low Despite Slight 2023 Spike
Federal enforcers and private plaintiffs filed more new antitrust cases last year than the year before but the slight uptick still kept 2023 as the second lowest in a decade, according to a new Lex Machina report.
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April 03, 2024
2nd Circ. Told FIFA Bribery Convictions Rightly Nixed
A former 21st Century Fox television executive and an Argentine sports marketing company told the Second Circuit that a lower court was right to toss their convictions related to the FIFA corruption scandal, contending that U.S. law does not reach foreign commercial bribery.
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April 03, 2024
Hawaii Bio Power Co. Can't Add Merger-Based Antitrust Claims
A Hawaii federal magistrate judge has refused to permit the addition of new allegations, based on a 2017 fossil fuel plant acquisition, to a recently restarted lawsuit accusing the state's largest power company of anticompetitively canceling a contract for a new biomass energy plant.
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April 03, 2024
Apple Blasts Input From Microsoft, Meta, Others In Epic Case
Apple asked a California federal judge Wednesday to reject attempts by Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Spotify and other major developers to insert themselves into Epic Games' argument that the iPhone maker is not complying with an order barring it from using anti-steering rules in the App Store.
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April 03, 2024
US Soccer Urges High Court To Hear Antitrust Fight
The U.S. Soccer Federation on Wednesday once again asked the U.S. Surpeme Court to review the Second Circuit's decision reviving an antitrust lawsuit against it and FIFA, arguing that the government's opposition to the federation's petition failed to defend an "extreme membership liability" imposed by the circuit court ruling.
Expert Analysis
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When Patients Have Standing For Hospital Antitrust Suits
Brown v. Hartford Healthcare Corp., recently decided by a Connecticut state court, provides a useful examination of how antitrust standing issues may be analyzed when patients directly sue a healthcare system for anti-competitive conduct, says Charles Honart at Stevens & Lee.
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8 Ways To Negotiate Improved Disgorgement Outcomes
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's nearly $3.4 billion collected in disgorgements in 2023 shows that substantial disgorgement claims from regulators and law enforcement are the new norm, but corporations may be able to dramatically reduce what they owe by using eight strategies to argue for reduced net profit calculations, say experts at AlixPartners.
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Lessons From This Year's Landmark Green Energy IP Clash
In this year's Siemens v. General Electric wind turbine patent dispute, a Massachusetts federal court offers a cautionary tale against willful infringement, and highlights the balance between innovation, law and ethics, as legal battles like this become more frequent in the renewable energy sector, say John Powell and Andrew Siuta at Sunstein.
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DOJ's RealPage Notice Signals Focus On Pricing Algorithms
The U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division recently filed a statement of interest in the Realpage multidistrict litigation to stake out its position that price-fixing algorithms pose a great anti-competitive threat, which suggests that the DOJ and private parties may continue to bring similar actions in the future, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.
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Series
The Pop Culture Docket: Judge D'Emic On Moby Grape
The 1968 Moby Grape song "Murder in My Heart for the Judge" tells the tale of a fictional defendant treated with scorn by the judge, illustrating how much the legal system has evolved in the past 50 years, largely due to problem-solving courts and the principles of procedural justice, says Kings County Supreme Court Administrative Judge Matthew D'Emic.
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Series
Performing Music Makes Me A Better Lawyer
The discipline of performing live music has directly and positively influenced my effectiveness as a litigator — serving as a reminder that practice, intuition and team building are all important elements of a successful law practice, says Jeff Wakolbinger at Bryan Cave.
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Reverse Proffers In Federal Criminal Cases Can Be A Win-Win
The increasingly popular reverse proffer — in which prosecutors disclose evidence to targets of a criminal investigation — can help the government test its case and persuade witnesses to cooperate, and can help defendants sharpen their strategies and obtain favorable deals by choosing to cooperate, say Jeffrey Martino and Byron Tuyay at Baker McKenzie.
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EU Rejection Of Booking.com Deal Veers From Past Practice
The European Commission's recent prohibition of Booking's purchase of Etraveli based on ecosystem theories of harm reveals a lower bar for prohibiting nonhorizontal mergers, and may mean increased merger scrutiny for companies with entrenched market positions in digital markets, say lawyers at Linklaters.
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Breaking Down High Court's New Code Of Conduct
The U.S. Supreme Court recently adopted its first-ever code of conduct, and counsel will need to work closely with clients in navigating its provisions, from gift-giving to recusal bids, say Phillip Gordon and Mateo Forero at Holtzman Vogel.
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7 Critical Copyright And AI Questions Courts Need To Address
U.S. courts have yet to rule on many copyright issues regarding generative artificial intelligence technologies, so developers and users should consider several questions when evaluating risks, developing risk mitigation plans and making decisions about particular use cases, say John Delaney and Sean West at Perkins Coie.
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Mitigating Antitrust Risk Amid Increased Dealmaking Scrutiny
While deals continue to get done despite 60% of significant merger investigations in the U.S. last year concluding with a complaint or abandoned transaction, private equity firms should identify and assess potential antitrust risks and develop strategies to mitigate them early in the deal process, say attorneys at Dechert.
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Opinion
Legal Profession Gender Parity Requires Equal Parental Leave
To truly foster equity in the legal profession and to promote attorney retention, workplaces need to better support all parents, regardless of gender — starting by offering equal and robust parental leave to both birthing and non-birthing parents, says Ali Spindler at Irwin Fritchie.
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Managing ANDA Venue Issues As Del. And NJ Filings Rise
Delaware and New Jersey have prevailed as the primary forum for pharmaceutical litigation as more generic companies file abbreviated new drug applications, but this venue scheme presents traps for the unwary, and legislation may still be necessary to ensure fairness and predictability, say Timothy Cook and Kevin Yurkerwich at WilmerHale.
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Series
Writing Thriller Novels Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Authoring several thriller novels has enriched my work by providing a fresh perspective on my privacy practice, expanding my knowledge, and keeping me alert to the next wave of issues in an increasingly complex space — a reminder to all lawyers that extracurricular activities can help sharpen professional instincts, says Reece Hirsch at Morgan Lewis.
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What Lawyers Must Know About Calif. State Bar's AI Guidance
Initial recommendations from the State Bar of California regarding use of generative artificial intelligence by lawyers have the potential to become a useful set of guidelines in the industry, covering confidentiality, supervision and training, communications, discrimination and more, say attorneys at Debevoise.