Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog

FTC Seeks Rehearing in 11th Circuit's Schering-Plough Decision

The Patent Law Blog reports on the FTC's motion for rehearing with links to the documents.

$65 Million Settlement in Paxil lawsuit

From law.com:

"A federal judge has granted final approval to SmithKline Beecham's $65 million settlement of a class action antitrust suit brought by consumers who said they paid inflated prices for Paxil, a popular anti-depressant drug.

"The suit alleged that SmithKline illegally maintained a monopoly by filing a series of "sham" patent lawsuits that were designed to delay any generic version of the drug from reaching the market."

More on Rambus suit against competitors

Latest report on court's refusal to dismiss lawsuit brought by Rambus alleging collusion between rivals Hynix and Micron.

Microsoft-EU Fail to Reach Accord

Latest news is that talks between EU antitrust enforcers and Steve Ballmer have failed to result in an agreement.  EU enforcers are not convinced that a version of Windows without Mediaplayer meets technical standards. 

CVS Settles Antitrust Case

CVS settles an antitrust suit brought by the DC government challenging its purchase and closing of a local pharmacy as a monopolistic practice.  The settlement of $ 475,000 "will be divided between the District's antitrust enforcement fund, which will receive $125,000, and a charity to be designated by the attorney general, which will receive $350,000 to help low-income D.C. residents purchase prescription drugs."

Rambus' Press Release in Antitrust and Patent cases

A press release from Rambus reports that its antitrust suit against several DRAM manufacturers is progressing to discovery and that its patent suits against Micron and Hynix have survived motions to dismiss.

Matsushita Uncovered

Nickolai Levin, an associate with Mayer, Brown, Rowe, & Maw, in D.C. has published an interesting article on Matshushita in 73 Fordham Law Rev. 1627 (2005).   Abstract and manuscript are available at SSRN.  The article builds on Robert Cover's Nomos and Narrative to address the question: "when to limit the range of permissible inferences from circumstantial evidence at the summary judgment stage."  Quoting from the abstract:

"Studying the history of how the antitrust summary judgment standard developed, this Article discusses how antitrust has its own nomoi (substantive sub-worlds) and redemptive narrative (consumer welfare) interacting with one another and how, in one nomos - oligopoly parallel pricing cases - some circuit courts have arguably erred by overapplying deterrence concerns that originated as part of the consumer welfare narrative."

Finally, an interesting humanistic interpretation of economic thinking in antitrust law.

FTC Approve Toys R US Acquisition

Story from Chicago Tribune

Prof. Shores on Formalism in Antitrust

Professor David Shores of Wake Forest Law School has published an interesting paper on SSRN entitled Economic Formalism in Antitrust Decisionmaking.  He crriticizes formal economic thinking in antitrust jurisprudence and draws a parallel with the formalism of the Lochner opinion. 

One mystery from the Lochner era and the early years of antitrust jurisprudence is Justice Peckham, who authored Lochner and also wrote the opinion in Trans Missouri Freight, an early Sherman Act opinion that made all agreements among competitors anti-competitive.  Although both Lochner and Trans Missouri Freight illustrate the dangers of formalism, it is worth noting that Peckham, who extolled the liberty of contract in Lochner, readily struck down a contract a few years earlier in Trans Missouri Freight, characterizing it as the type of industry self-regulation that the Sherman Act forbid.

Getting By With A Little Help From My Friends?

Last week several US firms joined the coalition aiding the EU in the antitrust investigation of Microsoft.  The players are IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, Nokia, and RealNetworks.  More details here.

Microsoft and Gateway Settle Case

As a settlement of issues arising from US v Microsoft, Gateway and Micrososoft announced a settlement yesterday totalling $ 150 million. The payment will be used by Gateway to develop and sell systems running Windows. Hmmm, wonder who wins from all if this. The news from Redmond provides more details.   The report from Information Week provides another viewpoint.

EU Antitrust Commissioner Considers US Style Procedures

In a speech at a conference last week, Neelie Kroes recommended that the EU consider US style plea bargaining and whistleblower protections in order to enhance antitrust enforcement.  Stressing the need for harmonization in international antitrust enforcement, particularly in area of cartelization, Commissioner Kroes pointed out the need to emulate certain US enforcement tools, such as secret grand jury investigations and threat of criminal prosecution. 

LexisNexis Sponsors Law Professor Blogs Network

We are thrilled to announce that LexisNexis has agreed to sponsor all of the blogs in our Law Professor Blogs Network:

• AntitrustProf Blog (Shubha Ghosh (SUNY Buffalo))
• ContractsProf Blog (Carol Chomsky (Minnesota) & Frank Snyder (Texas-Wesleyan))
• CrimProf Blog (Jack Chin (Arizona) & Mark Godsey (Cincinnati))
• Health Law Prof Blog (Betsy Malloy (Cincinnati) & Tom Mayo (SMU))
• LaborProf Blog (Rafael Gely (Cincinnati))
• Law Librarian Blog (Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati)) 
• Law School Academic Support Blog (Dennis Tonsing (Roger Williams))
• Media Law Prof Blog (Cristina Corcos (LSU))
• Sentencing Law & Policy Blog (Douglas Berman (Ohio State))
• White Collar Crime Prof Blog (Peter Henning (Wayne State) & Ellen Podgor (Georgia State))
• TaxProf Blog (Paul Caron (Cincinnati))
• Tech Law Prof Blog (Jonathan Ezor (Touro) & Michelle Zakarin (Touro))
• Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (Gerry Beyer (St. Mary's))

LexisNexis shares our vision for expanding the network into other areas of law, so please email us if you would be interested in finding out more about starting a blog as part of our network.

Antitrust Suit Against Mack Truck Goes Forward

A Pennsylvania district court judge allows the antitrust suit against Mack Truck to proceed to trial.   The suit is brought by one of Mack's truck distributors who alleges,among other claims, that the company engages in price discrimination with respect to its truck parts and the selling of trucks.

Industry Sides Against Microsoft in EU

According to Reuters, "alobby group backed by Nokia , Oracle and IBM has asked an EU court for permission to join the European Commission in its antitrust battle with Microsoft."   Further details in Business Week.

The Scarlet Letter--N?

The European Version of Windows may well be  called "Windows XP Home Edition N."  While not exactly tongue tripping, the proposed new name is meant to indicate that is "not with media player." The following stories provide more details:

Business Week

The Washington Post