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.
Amazon Inc. investors have delivered company leadership a suit for exposing the corporation to a “massive financial hit” caused by news of alleged ...
Scrutiny of companies’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies increasingly affects how companies do business, even firms with no clear ...
Photo by Israel Adnrade on Unsplash The Federal Trade Commission has proposed a rule that would ban most non-compete clauses in employment contracts, ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
In 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 ...
Prior approval is once again standard practice. The Federal Trade Commission has resuscitated its long-dormant policy of routinely restricting ...
Despite agreeing on almost nothing, Democrats and Republicans have found a common cause: the anticompetitive tactics of dominant digital platforms. ...
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, 2021Facing 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, 2021President 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, ...
The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in favor of student-athletes in their antitrust dispute with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) ...
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 ...
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may not simultaneously seek injunctive relief for deceptive ...
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, 2021FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips and George Washington Law School Competition Law Director William E. Kovacic, who once chaired the agency, appeared on ...
Sen. 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, 2021Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) -- a leading voice in the call for antitrust law reform -- is preparing fresh legislation designed to block acquisitions of ...
A biometric information privacy protection bill introduced in the New York Assembly this month is pending in that body’s Consumer Affairs and ...
Healthcare insurance companies, like other insurers, have enjoyed an exemption from U.S. antitrust laws since March 1945 when President Roosevelt ...
In its 56-page Feb. 13 report, the GAO listed three issues that should be considered: Which agency or agencies should oversee Internet privacy. What ...
On October 7, 2020, the European Commission accepted commitments offered by Broadcom Inc., ending its investigation into the chipmaker. Although a ...
Dan Mogin, Timothy LaComb, Steven Benzand Jayme Weber
November 11, 2020Suit says company improperly uses market power to achieve exclusivity. The U.S. Department of Justice and 11 states have sued Google LLC in federal ...
By Jonathan Rubin The case involves questions "on the frontier edges" of U.S. antitrust law, according to the judge overseeing it. It is a legal ...
At a conference earlier this year on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, Assistant Treasury Secretary Thomas P. Feddo ...
Dan Mogin, Jonathan Rubin, Jennifer M. Oliver, and Timothy Z. LaComb
October 15, 2020The sky is not falling. Opinion limited to 'at will' contracts. When a third party craters a contract, you and the other contracting party almost ...
One of U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr's team has come to his defense against allegations that he has mismanaged the Department of Justice. Assistant ...
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra says the COVID-19 virus has “shone a light” on the impact consolidation in the healthcare market has had ...
On May 5, 2020, U.S. Judge Nina Gershon of New York granted certification to a class of end-payor plaintiffs (EPPs) who purchased the successful ...
On Feb. 24, 2020, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals revived refusal-to-deal and tying claims brought against Comcast Corp. by Viamedia Inc. ...
Jonathan Rubin, Timothy Z. LaComb
June 16, 2020Live Nation Threatens Anyone Who Doesn’t Play Along, Plaintiffs Allege Concert-goers tired of paying “supracompetitive fees” on ticket purchases from ...
In an interview with Politico’s Leah Nylen and Betsy Woodruff Swan, Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) explained that he wants the next coronavirus relief ...
Insurance coverage works when risk is spread across a large number of policyholders. But for the insurance market to function properly losses must be ...
Living by the adage “if you can’t beat them, join them,” tobacco giant Altria Group, Inc. acquired a 35% stake in e-cigarette market leader Juul ...
Reuters has reported that Gray Television Inc. has withdrawn its $8.5 billion offer to buy Tegna Inc. due to the potential impact of the COVID-19 ...
On March 10, 2020, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority gave Cengage and McGraw-Hill an ultimatum – provide remedies that cure the ...
For believers in free markets it is important that they operate free of “shenanigans,” Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn ...
Big Tech mergers make big headlines, but there is much more to a deal than how much money changes hands. More important questions need to be ...
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 ...
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Jan. 28, 2020, that the “size-of transaction threshold” for reporting proposed mergers and ...
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 ...
“If that procedure sounds unfair, that’s because it is.” That’s how Axon Enterprise, Inc. describes the inner workings of the Federal Trade ...
Jonathan Rubin, Jennifer M. Oliver
January 13, 2020The 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 ...
Copy equipment giant HP Inc. turned down the much smaller Xerox Holdings Corp.’s acquisition overtures twice in one week as the exchange of ...
Reuters broke the story that the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is conducting a national security ...
DNA sequencing giant Illumina, Inc.’s proposed $1.2 billion acquisition of Pacific Biosciences of California Inc. has drawn opposition in the U.K. ...
Moderator & Speaker: Daniel J. Mogin | Managing Partner, MoginRubin LLP Speakers: Jennifer M. Oliver, CIPP/US | Partner, MoginRubin LLP Thomas N. ...
Now it’s the direct purchasers of one of the nation’s most delicious and protein-rich commodities -- beef. The purchasers claim in a new class action ...
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed AB 824, known as the “Pay-for-Delay" bill, blocking pharmaceutical companies from paying generic drug makers ...
Jennifer M. Oliver, Timothy Z. LaComb
October 17, 2019Several amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 are headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. Issues range from the timing of employer ...
Mandatory 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, 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 committee has been playing a bigger role on the global M&A stage, figuring prominently in the U.S.-China trade war and putting the breaks on ...
The U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division has issued guidance to assist prosecutors in assessing corporate compliance programs during criminal ...
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 ...
“Today’s big tech companies have too much power — too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy. They’ve bulldozed competition, ...
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