Southern District of Georgia Judge Randell Hall dismissed with prejudice a Real-estate broker’s suit alleging that the Greater Augusta Association of Realtors Inc. (GAAR) violated the Sherman Act by adopting rules that discriminated against agents who operated solely online. Separately, Keller alleged that the rules violated a consent judgment in an earlier case. There the […]
Author Archives: Steve Semeraro
EU Requests Patent Settlement Information Between Pharmaceutical Companies and Generic Drug Manufacturers
January 31, 2011 – 1:12 pm
Antitrust regulators requested drug patent settlement information for 2010 from drug manufacturers to determine if the agreements have delayed generic drug entry into the market. The request for information is the second monitoring session activated by the EC. The first monitoring exercise determined that “pay for delay” settlement agreements decreased significantly once the EC began […]
Summary Judgment Granted for Nielson Extinguishing Antitrust Claims
January 31, 2011 – 1:05 pm
Southern District of Florida Judge Paul Huck granted partial summary judgment for Nielson on an antitrust claim, deferred ruling on breach of contract and Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act claims. The plaintiff, Sunbeam Television Corp., alleged that Nielson used faulty viewership data to plummet ratings for Sunbeam’s stations. Sunbeam also alleged that Nielson […]
Aspartame Conspiracy Suite Dismissed
January 31, 2011 – 9:05 am
The Third Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a conspiracy case claiming that 10 defendants, including Japanese firm Ajinomoto Co. Inc., which distributed aspartame in the United States; Monsanto, which owned rights to aspartame product NutraSweet; and Delaware-based NutraSweet Co. conspired to increase the price of the sweetener. The court dismissed the case as outside the statute of limitations, because the […]
Canadian Competition Authority Challenges Visa & MasterCard Merchant Rules
January 28, 2011 – 4:20 pm
The Canadian Competition Bureau filed an application with the Competition Tribunal seeking to stop Visa Canada Corp. and MasterCard International Inc. from enforcing agreements restraining competition on the fees that merchants pay to accept credit cards. Visa and MasterCard rules allegedly block retailers from encouraging customers to use cash or debit cards, which carry lower acceptance fees, instead […]
Supreme Court to Hear Telecom Entrance Fee Case
January 28, 2011 – 4:00 pm
The Sixth Circuit, disagreeing with the Federal Communications Commission, has held that incumbent telephone carriers need not provide “entrance facilities” to competitors at regulated cost-based rates. Instead, they may charge market rates or refuse to provide the facilities at all. The court held that the 1996 Telecommunications Act clearly distinguishes between interconnection facilities that much […]
EU Antitrust Regulators Raid Truck Manufacturers in Cartel Investigation
January 28, 2011 – 1:15 pm
Antitrust regulators raided the offices of Daimler AG, Volvo AB, and other truck manufacturers as they began to investigate cartel activity. The EC announced that it had reason to believe that truck manufacturers may have operated a cartel or abused their dominant market positions to restrict competition. All five truck manufactures involved in the probe […]
Judge Dismisses Polymer Antitrust Case
January 28, 2011 – 1:10 pm
District of Massachusetts’s Judge Michael A. Posner granted Specialized Technology Resources Inc.’s (STR) motion to dismiss a suit brought by JPS Elastomerics Corp., accusing STR of attempting to drive JPS out of the specialized polymer market by bringing a sham claim in state court. JPS brought the suit in federal court after having lost a […]
Refusal to Deal Claim Based on Denial of Lab Accreditation to Move Forward
January 28, 2011 – 10:02 am
Middle District of Tennessee Judge William J. Haynes Jr rejected a motion to dismiss K&S Associates Inc. claim that members of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine conspired to deny its lab the accreditation that it needed to operate. For 27 years, K&S has operated one of three U.S. dosimetry calibration laboratories with AAPM […]
EC Opens Cement Investigation
January 26, 2011 – 5:16 pm
The European Commission is investigating cement manufacturers suspected of engaging in anticompetitive business practices. The Commission is concerned about possible import/export restrictions, market sharing, and price coordination in the markets for cement and related products.