Articles Posted in Civil Non-Merger Highlights

On October 6, the FCC ended its investigation into Time Warner Cable’s (“Time Warner”) decision in August to drop the NFL Network without providing appropriate notice to subscribers. The FCC reached a consent decree in which Time Warner agreed that it violated an FCC rule that requires cable operators to provide customers 30 days notice…

The European Commission (“EC”) enlarged the scope of its antitrust review of Intel on September 12 to investigate whether the company pressured an electronics retailer to exclude chips made by Advanced Micro Devices (“AMD”). The relationship between Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, and the retailer, the Media Market division of the German company Metro,…

By a unanimous vote, the Federal Trade Commission (“Commission” or “FTC”) determined on August 2 that computer technology developer Rambus, Inc. unlawfully monopolized the markets for four computer memory technologies incorporated into industry standards for dynamic random access memory (“DRAM”) chips. DRAMs are widely used in personal computers, servers, printers, and cameras. In an opinion…

Testifying on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) before the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging, Commissioner Jon Leibowitz described the FTC’s work in the area of branded and generic pharmaceutical competition and discussed barriers that can lead to the delay of generic entry into the U.S. marketplace.Opening with a discussion of pharmaceutical prices,…

On July 25, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) told the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity of the House Financial Services Committee that changes in the real estate industry, which increasingly incorporate the Internet into their business models, give consumers “the choice to save potentially thousands of dollars in commissions in exchange for…

On June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments from Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., BellSouth Corp., and Qwest Communications International, Inc. in a case that may either help companies’ efforts to fight off antitrust law suits, or promote consumers challenges to what appears to be illegal coordination of activities by competing companies…

On June 27, the Commission authorized the filing of comments, prepared jointly with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, with the New York State Assembly Committee on the Judiciary regarding proposed legislation to expand the scope of activities constituting the unauthorized practice of law.In the comments, the FTC and DOJ address Assembly Bill A05596,…

On June 26, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) appeal of the Eleventh Circuit’s decision that Schering-Plough Corp. (“Schering”) legally paid two generic drug competitors to stay out of the market as part of a settlement to patent litigation. In the past, the FTC has taken a consistently…

On June 23, the DOJ filed a petition asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to hold the American Bar Association (“ABA”) in civil contempt for violating multiple provisions of a 1996 antitrust consent decree. The consent decree prohibited the ABA from misusing the law school accreditation process. The DOJ also filed…

On June 20, the staff of the Bureau of Competition advised Alpena (Michigan) Public Schools that its proposed plan to have pharmaceuticals transferred to it for use by its employees, by the Alpena Regional Medical Center, with actual distribution of the pharmaceuticals being made by certain Alpena-area pharmacies, falls within the Non-Profit Institutions Act “NPIA”.That…