The Eleventh Circuit has ruled that Palmyra Hospital has suffered antitrust injury and is an efficient plaintiff to challenge competitor Phoebe Hospital’s leveraging of a state granted certificate of need (“CON”) to exclude Palmyra, which does not have a certificate, from providing services to Blue Cross customers that do not require a CON.
Mylan Antitrust Claim Against AstraZeneca Tossed
May 27, 2010 – 2:30 pm
Judge Barbara Jones, Southern District of New York, dismissed Mylan’s sham patent litigation allegations against AstraZeneca on the ground that the defendant’s patent enforcement litigation was supported by probable cause and thus could not give rise to antitrust liability.
Third Circuit Upholds Dismissal of Claims Against Dentsply
May 27, 2010 – 2:02 pm
The Third Circuit affirmed the dismisal of two cases challenging Dentsply’s agreements with dealers with respect to the sale of competitive artificial teeth. The court first upheld the denial of the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on the ground that an earlier decision against Dentsply in a government case was not sufficient to establish injury to the plaintiff. Further, the court held that the plaintiff failed to allege sufficient facts to establish a conspiracy.
Ninth Circuit Holds that AT&T Did Not Monopolize Underground Concrete Vault Market
May 27, 2010 – 1:41 pm
The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for a group of AT&T affiliates holding that a contract with a supplier of underground concrete vaults used by developers to install wiring did not improperly monopolize the market because it did not result in supra-competitive prices and did not improperly harm the plaintiff’s market position.
Resale Price Maintenance Law in Flux
May 27, 2010 – 9:16 am
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision three years ago to eliminate the per serule against resale price maintenance, the state of the law remains in flux primarily because some state antitrust enforcers continue to aggressively pursue RPM arrangements under state law. Recent examples include New York’s prosecution of Tempur-Pedic International and California’s case against DermaQuest Inc. Maryland has also deemed RPM agreements as per se illegal under its state antitrust law. These developments threaten to create a patchwork of RPM laws resembling the situation with indirect purchaser law suits, which are forbidden at the federal level and in some states but not others.
No Price Fixing Conspiracy in Text Message Price Fixing Case
May 26, 2010 – 6:35 pm
Update May 2010: The court has held that the plaintiffs more detailed amended complaint property alleges a conspiracy. The amended complaint alleges that the defendants used the Wireless Internet Caucus to facilitate price fixing agreements with respect to text messages, including specific dates and executives who attended the meetings. Although the defendants argued that the new allegations did not directly show that a price fixing agreement took place, the court held that the plaintiffs are not required to prove their case at the pleading stage.
In In re: Text Messaging Antitrust Litigation, Northern District of Illinois Judge Matthew F. Kennelly has dismissed a proposed class action against Verizon Wireless LLC, AT&T Mobility LLC, Sprint Nextel Corp., and T-Mobile USA Inc., accusing them of conspiring to fix prices for text messaging. In their suit, plaintiffs alleged that the defendants conspired to increase the prices of single text messages as the cost to transmit these text messages decreased. The court held that the lockstep price increases for individual text messages are more likely the result of individual decision-making in the best interest of the companies than a price-fixing conspiracy. Furthermore, the court rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the carriers’ capacity to send text messages exceeded demand during the relevant period and that price increases in a time of excess capacity support an inference of conspiracy, holding that the consumers’ primary mode for realizing lower prices for text messaging is to purchase bulk packages and not to obtain lower price per text message, and plaintiffs did not allege any price conspiracy with regard to bulk packages.
FTC Permits Google Acquisition of AdMob to Move Forward
May 26, 2010 – 1:55 pm
After expressing some concerns about the competitive effects of Google’s acquisition of AdMob, the FTC unanimously voted to close the investigation citing Apple’s recent acquisition of Quattro Wireless and plans to become an aggressive competitor in the mobile advertising network market.
EC Fines DRAMS Chip Makers
May 26, 2010 – 12:07 pm
On 19 May, 2010, the EC settled a case involving 10 producers of DRAMS chips used in computers and servers, fining the parties €331,273,800. The fine was reduced by 10% because the companies’ acknowledged the facts.
EC Investigates Bale Wrap Manufacturers
May 26, 2010 – 12:02 pm
The EC inspected companies involved with bale wrap – a plastic film which is used to package silage, hay and straw. The unannouced inspections involved cartel concerns.