The MoginRubin blog offers informative analysis and insightful commentary on timely issues related to competition and antitrust actions, mergers, acquisitions and associated regulatory and legislative activity.
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and 17 state attorneys general on September 26th filed their long-awaited antitrust complaint against Amazon.com ...
The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from six states – California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin – joined in ...
The Tenth Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a 2019 antitrust lawsuit against Berkshire Hathaway’s Johns Manville (JM) by rival ...
Amazon Inc. investors have delivered company leadership a suit for exposing the corporation to a “massive financial hit” caused by news of alleged ...
Following its ten-month investigation, the United States Department of Justice appears on the verge of filing an antitrust suit against Live Nation, ...
Scrutiny of companies’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies increasingly affects how companies do business, even firms with no clear ...
U.S. Judge Leo T. Sorokin has permanently enjoined American Airlines and JetBlue from continuing their Northeast Alliance (“NEA”), in which the judge ...
Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and 10 consumer advocacy groups, including the American Economic Liberties Project, Public Citizen, and the Open Markets ...
Photo by Pietro Mattia via Unsplash. What entity gets oversight of the health and safety of thoroughbred racehorses? With seven horse deaths in the ...
In a deal announced on May 9, Tempur Sealy International, Inc., the world’s largest mattress manufacturer, has agreed to acquire Houston-based ...
On April 24, 2023, a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit largely affirmed a district court’s judgment following a bench trial that Epic Games, ...
On April 26, 2023, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) announced its decision to block Microsoft’s purchase of global gaming leader, ...
The Biden administration continues its campaign against wage suppression as a source of harm to workers, competitive markets, and the economy. In its ...
On April 12, 2023, the European Commission informed Broadcom Inc. of its preliminary view that its proposed acquisition of VMware Inc. may harm ...
The Federal Trade Commission recently filed an amicus brief in support of a generic drug maker’s antitrust case involving Apokyn®, a drug developed ...
In a unanimous bipartisan decision, the Federal Trade Commission released an opinion Monday (April 3, 2023) finding Illumina’s $8 billion acquisition ...
Dan Mogin, Tim LaComb, and Jonathan Rubin
April 05, 2023Photo by Alexandru Tugui on Unsplash Roughly five months after announcing the largest merger in retail grocer history, Kroger and Albertsons are ...
Photo by Super Straho on Unsplash For the second time in a year, Amazon lost its bid to toss an antitrust action brought by online consumers ...
Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash The Second Circuit affirmed a district court’s approval of a $5.6 billion settlement in a Sherman Act antitrust case ...
Photo by Taylor Vick on Unsplash Following its Phase 1 investigation, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) determined Broadcom Inc.’s ...
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash U.S. Judge Karen Spencer Martson of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania approved on March 15, 2023, a ...
Photo of cervical cancer cells by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash Pfizer Inc. announced on March 13 plans to acquire cancer drug maker Seagen ...
Beverage aisle at Pennsylvania Costco March 2023. Photo by Jane Hagy. The Federal Trade Commission has reportedly launched an investigation to ...
Photo by Nathan Rogers on Unsplash On March 7, 2023, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals revived an antitrust lawsuit brought by Relevant Sports ...
Image: March 7, 2023, screen capture of Ticketmaster notices re Taylor Swift tickets. Live music fans have been dealt another setback in their war on ...
Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash The FTC has decided to abandon its challenge to Meta Platforms Inc.’s acquisition of virtual reality (VR) exercise ...
Photo by Marquise Kamanke on Unsplash What's Happening On January 23, 2023, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced the Hart-Scott-Rodino ...
Photo by Owen Lystrup on Unsplash Christmas 2022 was bedlam for thousands of travelers as Southwest Airlines cancelled 16,700 flights amid severe ...
Photo by Israel Adnrade on Unsplash The Federal Trade Commission has proposed a rule that would ban most non-compete clauses in employment contracts, ...
Photo by CardMapr.nl on Unsplash Mastercard has entered into a consent order with the Federal Trade Commission following the Commission’s ...
If anyone knows the workings of Washington’s antitrust machinery, it’s Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, who served as the company’s general counsel ...
RealPage, Inc., a real estate software and data analytics company, is facing class action litigation and a federal investigation over whether it is ...
The year is 1979. Inflation and lines at the gas pumps caused by a revolution in Iran have stunned Americans. Driven to action, the International ...
The road back from the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t been easy for Harley-Davidson. Although the company shipped more than 194,000 motorcycles globally ...
CFIUS has issued its first set of guidelines regarding the types of investment activity that could trigger penalties under the agency’s expanded ...
Alphabet, Inc., Google’s parent company, has won an early victory in the Google Maps antitrust litigation filed in the Northern District of ...
Since the mid-1990s, credit reporting in the U.S., which has its roots in the records of consumer accounts held by local merchants and small-town ...
What was promised in 2010 to deliver a robust pro-consumer ticketing and live events industry has created exactly the opposite 12 years later. That ...
Finding the deal would substantially lessen competition in the U.S. market for publishing rights for potential top-selling books, U.S. District Judge ...
Federal lawmakers troubled by The Kroger Co.’s impending acquisition of one of its chief competitors, The Albertson Cos., for $25 billion, will hold ...
Three poultry processors and a consulting firm that circulated wage information among them have entered a consent decree with the Department of ...
AbbVie Inc., which owns the patent on the global blockbuster drug, Humira, has again defeated a pair of claims by welfare-health plans that the ...
The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division is investigating the PGA Tour for potentially anticompetitive conduct, the Wall Street Journal was first ...
A group of AT&T and Verizon wireless subscribers have filed a proposed class action arguing that the T-Mobile / Sprint merger – despite all of ...
To use the cellular telephone networks, automobile manufacturers install telematic control units containing a baseboard processor that relies on 2G, ...
Patent law and antitrust law both promote innovation, albeit in very different ways. Patent law creates incentives by granting inventors the right to ...
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has, yet again, held that data scraping public websites is not unlawful. hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., decided ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently slammed the courthouse door on the plaintiff in Continental Automotive Systems v. Avanci, ...
In early February, Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines announced a $6.6 billion merger that gives Frontier a 51.5% controlling interest in a ...
Timothy Z. LaComb, Jonathan Rubin
May 05, 2022Antitrust law enforcers at the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission remain dedicated to increasing competition in several rapidly ...
Broadcom and the Federal Trade Commission just settled an antitrust probe in November 2021. Yet, roughly five months later, Broadcom is again in the ...
There was reason for optimism in August 2021, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted rehearing en banc of a 2-1 decision that would have ...
It’s a case that challenges the limits of the “freedom of design” usually enjoyed by companies accused of product design changes alleged to harm ...
Premerger reporting is now required for companies working on transactions that will have an estimated value of $101 million or more at the ...
Jennifer M. Oliver, Timothy Z. LaComb
April 01, 2022In 1990, the Department of Defense could turn to 13 companies to produce tactical missiles, eight to make fixed-wing aircraft, and another eight to ...
Intentionally or not, the federal government may have landed on an issue that can bring the Right and Left together: the price of beer, wine, and ...
“Second time lucky?” That is how U.S. Judge James E. Boasberg began his opinion allowing the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust suit against Meta ...
Companies seeking insurance coverage for losses from cyberattacks received good news this month. The New Jersey Superior Court for Union County found ...
The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has certified a question to the Illinois Supreme Court over the accrual of claims under the Illinois ...
HBLC · Ninth Circuit Opinion In Telescope Case By J Rubin And T LaComb 12 - 13 - 2021 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this month upheld judgment ...
Jonathan Rubin, Timothy Z. LaComb
December 13, 2021The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has ordered the company formerly known as Facebook to unwind its acquisition of Giphy, Inc. due to ...
Prior approval is once again standard practice. The Federal Trade Commission has resuscitated its long-dormant policy of routinely restricting ...
The Federal Trade Commission has approved a final order settling charges that chip giant Broadcom Inc. illegally monopolized markets for ...
Despite agreeing on almost nothing, Democrats and Republicans have found a common cause: the anticompetitive tactics of dominant digital platforms. ...
Saying the deal would create a “publishing behemoth,” the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit on Nov. 2 ...
Download the PDF Marking the first cannabis industry antitrust case to reach trial, a California jury on Sept. 23, 2021, returned a $5 million ...
In a recently published paper, a pair of academics propose that the application of artificial intelligence can offer a potent weapon against ...
Since February 2020, staff members at the Federal Trade Commission have been studying past acquisitions by Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and ...
Jonathan Rubin, Jennifer M. Oliver
September 21, 2021Apple, Inc. has been enjoying a tremendous advantage in the highly lucrative gaming-app market. This is thanks to the immense popularity of Apple ...
Facing what it calls a “tidal wave” of merger filings, the Federal Trade Commission has warned companies that Hart-Scott-Rodino Act reviews will now ...
Jonathan Rubin, Jennifer Oliver
August 11, 2021Delivering some good news for advocates of competitive markets, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has vacated a 2-1 decision that would have ...
President Biden’s July 9, 2021, Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy reflects a movement toward greater enforcement of ...
A quick recap of recent antitrust-related developments in semiconductors, real estate, college sports, insurance brokerage, digital advertising, ...
As predicted by some, the Federal Trade Commission issued a complaint charging Broadcom Inc. with illegally monopolizing several markets for ...
Dan Mogin, Timothy Z. LaComb, and Steven Benz*
July 06, 2021The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in favor of student-athletes in their antitrust dispute with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) ...
JUNE 21, 2021 -- The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) doesn’t get a free pass when it comes to antitrust law, the Supreme Court held ...
With today’s five-bill package, members of the U.S. House of Representatives continue their pressure on Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google for what ...
Saying big technology companies have reached dangerous levels of monopoly power, a New York State senator was optimistic that his proposed a solution ...
A two-page bipartisan bill introduced in the House of Representatives on May 21, 2021, would give state attorneys general more control over where ...
It is a common refrain by people familiar with Amazon’s merchant relationships: Amazon is great if you are a consumer, but if you’re a merchant on ...
As we witness increased market concentration and dominant players in many important industries, antitrust law and its enforcement are under attack as ...
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may not simultaneously seek injunctive relief for deceptive ...
A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals – on its own initiative – has invited attorneys in an antitrust class action to argue ...
Citing “more than enough evidence," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has upheld the Federal Trade Commission’s determination that ...
Both Democrats and Republicans see antitrust law as a critical issue that deserves much attention. They both wish to rein in the giants of ...
Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 8, 2021 proposed the Strategic Competition Action Act of 2021 ...
Dan Mogin, Jonathan Rubin, and Jennifer Oliver
April 14, 2021When it comes to companies offering workplace collaboration software platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Slack there is little in the way of ...
Dan Mogin, Jonathan Rubin, and Jennifer Oliver
April 01, 2021The number of players in the rapidly consolidating $140 billion global eyewear market just dropped by one as the biggest player grew bigger. The ...
FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips and George Washington Law School Competition Law Director William E. Kovacic, who once chaired the agency, appeared on ...
The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation to assess whether the pharmaceutical company Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. ...
Salesforce.com, Inc. and Slack Technologies Inc. have received requests for additional information from the Department of Justice Antitrust Division ...
Dan Mogin, Jonathan Rubin, and Jennifer Oliver
February 26, 2021Following a unanimous vote, the Federal Trade Commission lowered by $2 million the size of mergers and acquisitions that require the parties to ...
Calling the case a “poster child for divestiture,” the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the divestiture of a company in the door ...
Dan Mogin, Jonathan Rubin, and Jennifer Oliver
February 20, 2021Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), whose presidential campaign was run in part on the need to bolster antitrust enforcement and resources, has weighed in ...
Dan Mogin, Jonathan Rubin, Jennifer Oliver
February 18, 2021A decision by the Federal Trade Commission to challenge a proposed transaction as unlawful under antitrust laws, and setting the matter for a hearing ...
Agency review of business deals submitted to the federal government will now take at least the permissible full 30 days while the Federal Trade ...
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) -- a leading voice in the call for antitrust law reform -- is preparing fresh legislation designed to block acquisitions of ...
Facebook believes Apple abused its power in the smartphone market by forcing app developers to follow App Store rules that Apple itself doesn’t ...
A biometric information privacy protection bill introduced in the New York Assembly this month is pending in that body’s Consumer Affairs and ...
On Dec. 8, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint challenging the merger of The Procter & Gamble Company and Billie, Inc. According ...
This is especially true in antitrust, where industries and markets undergo constant change brought about by innovation and changing consumer ...
Jonathan Rubin, Jennifer M. Oliver
December 10, 2020Facebook’s acquisitions of one-time rivals Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 drew a great deal of criticism from pro-competition experts. And ...
That’s practically what has happened in the U.K. where the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has increased oversight of ad-driven digital ...
News of a data breach at Dickey’s Barbeque broke in October 2020, revealing that the payment card information of three million customers’ had been ...
In late May 2020 by online stationery and crafts company Minted disclosed that it had suffered a breach that compromised millions of consumers’ ...
MoginRubin LLP, Jennifer Oliver
December 02, 2020Anticompetitive conduct and misleading advertising practices in the burgeoning biosimilars market – where nearly identical versions of bioilogics are ...
Morgan Stanley’s proposed $13 billion all-stock acquisition of the popular E*TRADE online discount brokerage made big headlines last week. While no ...
The U.S. Treasury Department’s final regulations, giving it more power to scrutinize any national security risks that may arise from deals between ...
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted unanimously to challenge Edgewell Personal Care Co.’s proposed $1.37 billion acquisition of Harry’s, Inc. ...
The Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General have sued Vyera Pharmaceuticals and two of its executives for antitrust law ...
Two of the three dominant college textbook publishers – McGraw-Hill Education, Inc. and Cengage Learning Holdings II, Inc. – have agreed to merge. ...
Imagine purchasing a lamp that only uses light bulbs designed specifically to fit that lamp. No other bulb will do. Or a flashlight that requires ...
Jonathan Rubin, Jennifer M. Oliver
January 28, 2020The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have released for public comment their joint draft guidelines which courts may ...
Charles Schwab Corp. has announced it will acquire TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. for $26 billion in stock. But the merger should receive significant ...
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is challenging Illumina Inc.'s $1.2 billion acquisition of Pacific Biosciences of California Inc. (PacBio), ...
Claiming Comcast Corp. is using its significant buying power and ambitious nationwide acquisition strategy to dominate the lucrative regional sports ...
You have to give Google credit. It’s no quitter. Despite pressure in the United States and Europe that might tell other companies to take a breath, ...
After a 25-year business relationship, Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide, Inc. (ABI) has agreed to acquire the Craft Brew Alliance (CBA). ABI currently ...
Reuters broke the story that the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is conducting a national security ...
Two of the three dominant college textbook publishers – McGraw-Hill Education, Inc. and Cengage Learning Holdings II, Inc – have agreed to merge, ...
In a September 13, 2019 letter, seventeen consumer advocacy groups and unions (led by Public Citizen Inc.) sent a clear message to the Federal Trade ...
Dan Mogin, Jennifer M. Oliver, Timothy Z. LaComb
September 18, 2019U.S. Judge Janis L. Sammartino in California’s Southern District certified a price fixing class action against “Big Tuna” this summer following a ...
While Facebook is under assault from multiple agencies and branches of government in the U.S. and Europe, it received a little good news from ...
Google says cookies are good. They are critical to generating advertising revenue and they help the company improve its product from functionality ...
When a company with a new idea shakes up an industry and delights consumers, it is tempting for established players to devour them. But is that in ...
People old enough to remember record players (or people who have rediscovered them) know what it was like when the needle skipped across the album ...
By Dan Mogin and Timothy Z. LaComb CBS Corp. is buying Viacom in an all-stock transaction that values Viacom at its current stock market ...
The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division has inserted itself into a case that questions whether the Anti-Malware Testing Standards ...
Jonathan Rubin, Timothy Z. LaComb
August 07, 2019The federal government and five state attorneys general reached a proposed settlement with T-Mobile and Sprint on July 26, ending their opposition to ...
Jonathan Rubin, Timothy Z. LaComb
July 29, 2019The Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission are making good on their promises to scrutinize the world’s leading ...
Ubiquitous modem chips allow our smart devices to communicate with each other over cellular networks using industry standards like 4G LTE. A small ...
For a group of organizations whose very existence is based on fair world-class competition, the competitive spirit of professional sports leagues has ...
Jennifer M. Oliver, Timothy Z. LaComb
July 16, 2019Mandatory arbitration clauses in California just became a lot less mandatory. The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals handed consumers in three ...
Jennifer M. Oliver, Timothy Z. LaComb
July 09, 2019AbbVie Inc. is acquiring Dublin-based Allergan PLC for approximately $63 billion in cash and stocks, the companies announced to today. This will give ...
According to a recent Wall Street Journal report millions of business listings on Google Maps are fake, thanks to businesses seeking to drive call ...
The meat packing industry is coming under increasing pressure in the form of separate antitrust lawsuits filed this year by consumers and cattle ...
Maine -- Governor Janet Mills signed the state’s tough new consumer privacy act into law June 6, requiring internet providers to obtain a consumer’s ...
Jennifer M. Oliver, Nicole Ambrosetti
June 14, 2019The newly proposed New York Privacy Act, S5642, would give consumers substantial control over the use of their personal data, such as the right to ...
Jennifer M. Oliver, Nicole Ambrosetti
June 07, 2019The line of politicians, regulators, and legislators in the U.S. and abroad expressing serious concerns about the market power held by big technology ...
The Wall Street Journal reported on May 31 that the U.S. Justice Department is “gearing up” for an antitrust investigation of Google, “a move that ...
Qualcomm Inc. has asked U.S. Judge Lucy H. Koh of the Northern District of California to stay, pending appeal to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of ...
The Appropriations Committee of the California Senate on May 17 halted efforts to add to the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) a private ...
The U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division has issued guidance to assist prosecutors in assessing corporate compliance programs during criminal ...
Companies will want to know of the often similar but frequently very different requirements created by the California Consumer Privacy Protection Act ...
Swedish music streaming company Spotify Technology SA’s antitrust complaint against Apple Inc. in Europe is another example of a dispute arising when ...
With the uptick in global private equity add-on acquisition activity comes the usual M&A-related risks, but getting out in front of any potential ...
On Friday, April 12, 2019, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) introduced the Privacy Bill of Rights Act "in the wake of a series of revelations about ...
Here are the puzzle pieces. Antitrust’s current consumer welfare standard enshrines short-term price and output effects and protecting competition – ...
This is an excerpt of a thorough discussion of the issue captured in a 14-page article. Download the PDF. No one wants their most valuable assets ...
The global cannabis market is on track to triple in size in the next three years, expecting to hit $32 billion, with two-thirds of that coming from ...
SACRAMENTO -- April 10, 2019 -- The California Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary yesterday voted 5-3 in support of SB 561 which would expand the ...
The landmark California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 granted consumers new rights to protect themselves with respect to the collection and use of ...
Employers and business owners who wish to protect themselves when employees leave for new positions -- taking with them valuable knowledge that ...
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood told CNBC on Monday, March 18, that he is developing his antitrust case against Google similar to the one ...
The European Commission has fined Google $1.69 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules. “Google has abused its market dominance by imposing a number ...
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