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Blog o’ Blogs February

By  |  February 23, 2018

The middle of winter sees a thawing of cases, with regulators and intellectuals going into overdrive as new questions arise and old issues remain across the Antitrust world. Major tech companies face fire from markets old and new, as US (and global) authorities continue to adjust to changing attitudes on free movement, competition and national jurisdiction, as concerns such as security, sustainability and increasingly interconnected markets shift priorities.

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    Following a six year investigation into Google’s business practices in India, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) issued its ruling.Two things, in particular, are remarkable about the decision.
    Geoffrey Manne (Truth on the Market)
    DOJ Antitrust Division Mulls Changes to Indirect Purchaser Rules
    This blog has discussed some of the dynamics created by the Supreme Court’s Hanover Shoe and Illinois Brick decisions and state “repealer” laws that attempt to undo their effect.  As it turns out, repealer states aren’t the only ones skeptical
    David Kleban and Robert P. LoBue (UEA Competition Policy Blog)
    On January 24, 2017, the European Commission announced that it had fined Qualcomm EUR 997,439,000. The Commission thinks that Qualcomm had abused its dominant position to become Apple’s sole supplier of long term evolution (“LTE“) baseband chipsets…
    Marco D’Ostuni, Marianna Meriani (Kluwer competition)
    Was Heir Locators Indictment a Hair Too Late?
    A Utah grand jury returned a one count Sherman Act indictment against Kemp & Associates, Inc. and Daniel J. Mannix,[2] a Kemp corporate officer.  According to the indictment, the conspiracy was an agreement to “allocate customers of Heir Location Services sold in the United States”
    Robert Connolly and Karen Sharp (Cartel Capers)
    Legal update: M&A in the pharma sector
    Of counsel James Baillieu explores the pharma M&A horizon in PharmaTimes magazine. The pharma sector saw deal activity fall in 2017 compared to previous years. While the number of deals remained robust, their value was significantly lower due to fewer large acquisitions…
    Sara Josselyn  (Deal Law Wire)
    Foreign Export Cartels, Comity, and the Separation of Powers
    Over the last two decades, the United States government has taken the lead in convincing jurisdictions around the world to outlaw “hard core” cartel conduct.  Such cartel activity reduces economic welfare by artificially fixing prices and reducing the output of affected goods and services.
    Alden Abbott (Truth on the Market)
    Free movement of algorithms within the EU
    Freedom of establishment, one of the four freedoms of the European Union single market, will allow artificial intelligence (AI) with legal personality to move freely and be recognised within the EU single market.
    Adriaan Louw and Patrick Bracher (Norton Rose Fulbright)
    Antitrust-Style Analysis in Patent Law
    Courts facing difficult questions of patent validity are increasingly turning to a form of decision-making that has long been familiar to antitrust lawyers: using per se analysis rather than the rule of reason…
    Saurabh Vishnubhakat (The Antitrust Attorney)
    Ohio vs Amex before the SCOTUS- EU judges already got it 
    used to be commonplace for many to say that EU Law was lagging behind US antitrust law. Not sure that is still the case, assuming it ever was. But there is an important are where EU judges (even if perhaps not yet all EU competition authorities) are one step ahead…
    Alfonso Lamadrid (Chilling Competition)
    Ukrainian Sanctions List and Merger Control – Atomic Bomb for Global Transactions?
    Significant amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On protection of economic competition” came into force on 17 December 2017. The changes are aimed at prohibiting transactions involving persons included in the Ukrainian sanctions list…
    Timur Bondaryev, Oleksander Dyakulych, Edem Mensitov (Arzinger/Kluwer Competition)
    Why ‘national security’ concerns are unlikely to impede the Melrose/GKN takeover
    After Melrose plc last week formalised its £7.4bn hostile takeover bid for the Armed Forces supplier GKN plc, Business Secretary Greg Clark is facing renewed pressure from the Labour Party and the UK’s largest trade union, Unite, to block any forthcoming deal
    David Reader (UEA Competition Policy Blog)
    2017 Statute of Limitations Roundup: Courts Disagree About Applicability of “Continuing Violation” Doctrine in Antitrust Actions
    2017 saw three notable decisions concerning the applicability of the “continuing violation” doctrine in antitrust cases.  We discuss below three cases that have taken different approaches in their treatment of this doctrine
    Timothy H. Gray and Melissa R. Ginsberg (Antitrust Update)