ANTITRUST

ANTITRUST
China Fines Tencent, Alibaba For Failing to Report Deals 
January 05, 2022

China’s market regulator has fined Alibaba, Tencent Holdings and Bilibili Inc. for failing to properly report several deals.   As Reuters reported Tuesday (Jan. 4), the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) penalized the companies 500,000 yuan ($78,692) for each of the dozen or so deals....

ANTITRUST
Lawsuit Says Google Pays Apple to Keep Away From Internet Search Market
January 04, 2022

A class action lawsuit has been filed in California against Google, Apple and the CEOs of both tech giants for allegedly violating antitrust laws, according to a press release. The complaint calls for the breakup of Google and Apple into separate and independent companies in...

ANTITRUST
Biden Takes Antitrust Steps in Meatpacking Industry
January 04, 2022

President Biden announced on Monday (Jan. 3) an action plan to create a more competitive and resilient meat and poultry supply chain. The plan aims to reduce high prices for meat, which in November were up 20.9% from a year earlier, to improve the working...

ANTITRUST
India Regulator Launches Probe of Apple App Store
January 02, 2022

India’s competition watchdog, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), wants to look into Apple over reported violations of antitrust law, according to a Reuters report Friday (Dec. 31). The order comes as a nonprofit group, “Together We Fight Society,” said Apple had been forcing developers...

ANTITRUST
Apple Must Change App Store Policies, Says Dutch Antitrust Regulator
December 27, 2021

The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) ordered Apple Dec. 24 to adjust its App Store policies to allow dating app providers to be able to use payment systems other than Apple’s, according to a press release. “Some app providers are dependent on Apple’s...

ANTITRUST
Facebook’s Appeal of UK CMA’s Decision on Giphy Deal Is Not Just About the Case
December 26, 2021

Facebook’s decision to appeal the U.K. CMA’s negative ruling over its Giphy deal may seek to revert not only the fate of this case, but also the approach taken by the regulator in the last two years on merger control. On Thursday (Dec. 23), the...

ANTITRUST
US-EU Cooperation on Merger Review Raises Concerns Among Executives
December 23, 2021

U.S. executives say they are worried that U.S., U.K. and European Union regulators are scheming to block transactions they dislike, even if they do not strictly fall under their domain. The criticism stems from recent deals that are being subject to more antitrust scrutiny than initially anticipated, like Nvidia-Arm, Illumina-Grail or Facebook-Giphy. But if...

ANTITRUST
FTC Moves Forward With Amazon Web Services Investigation
December 22, 2021

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is moving forward with an investigation into Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Amazon cloud computing business, over competition issues, Bloomberg reported. FTC officials have been getting information from various companies about the issues with AWS, according to the report....

ANTITRUST
UK Regulator Advocates Change to Google, Apple’s ‘Vice-Like Grip’ on Mobile App Ecosystems
December 14, 2021

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published an interim report on Tuesday (Dec. 14), that found Google and Apple “exercise a vice-like grip over mobile devices.” Andrea Coscelli, head of the regulator, is concerned that this duopoly over how people use mobile phones is...