Morrison & Foerster announced that Bonnie Lau has joined the firm as a partner in San Francisco in its Global Antitrust Law Practice and Investigations + White Collar Defense Group. Ms. Lau’s practice focuses on civil and criminal antitrust litigation in federal and state courts, as well as enforcement proceedings before agencies in the US […]
A federal appeals court on Tuesday, August 13, revived a putative class action alleging the National Football League’s (NFL) telecasting agreement with AT&T’s DirecTV unit unlawfully blocked competition. The case, which had been dismissed by a federal district court, alleges that the Sunday Ticket package eliminates competition in a given market for the live telecast […]
By Dirk Auer & Julian Morris (International Center for Law and Economics) Thousands of patents underpin the technologies that power the digital economy. Coordination among firms developing and implementing these novel technologies has notably been facilitated in large part by Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs). Despite the evident benefits of standardization in general and SDOs in […]
Google faces another antitrust allegation in the European Union—this time focused on its job search service. A group of 23 job search websites sent a letter to EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager claiming the search giant abused its dominant position at their expense, according to Reuters. The company launched the service in 2017, and later […]
Facebook considered acquiring video chat app Houseparty, but abandoned the deal last year due to concerns around heightened antitrust scrutiny, according to The New York Times. The company was in advanced discussions with Houseparty, but ended deal talks after it became clear that acquiring another social media company would be too risky, given Facebook’s dominance […]
On Thursday, August 8, a federal judge in Minneapolis dismissed antitrust lawsuits accusing several US pork companies of conspiring to limit supply in order to inflate prices and their own profits. Chief Judge John Tunheim said the plaintiffs failed to show “parallel conduct” among the companies, whose combined US market share exceeds 80%. It was […]
Polish oil refiner PKN Orlen’s bid for rival Lotos may reduce competition in Poland and neighboring countries and push up prices, EU antitrust regulators stated on Wednesday, August 7, as they opened a full-scale investigation. State-run PKN wants to buy at least a 53% of Lotos, in which the government holds a 53.19% stake. The […]
Garrigues continues to consolidate its offering in Latin America with the incorporation of lawyer Mario Ybar to head the antitrust practice in Chile. 42-year old Mario Ybar has spent his entire professional career at the National Economic Prosecutor’s Office (Fiscalía Nacional Económica), having held various positions during his fifteen-year stint with the Chilean antitrust authority, […]
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is reportedly carrying out an antitrust investigation surrounding a partnership between Apple and Amazon, according to The Verge. The tech giants made a deal last year which would allow Apple to sell its products directly to consumers through an official store on the Amazon site. While the move allegedly aimed […]
US Senators Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal introduced legislation on Friday, August 2, to allow harsher penalties for companies that violate antitrust law, following a Justice Department probe into alleged anticompetitive behavior by big tech. The “Monopolization Deterrence Act” by the Democratic senators would allow the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to seek […]