Cases filed by toy retailers alleging the toy manufacturer Ganz unlawfully tied the purchase of ancillary products to its popular Webkinz toy were consolidated by the Judicial Panel on Multi-district Litigation before the Northern District of California. The case is captioned In re: Webkinz Antitrust Litigation.
Author Archives: Steve Semeraro
Delaware Challenges Title Insurance Rate Setting
October 22, 2008 – 9:57 am
The state of Delaware has challenged rate setting practices by title insurance companies comprising 98% of the Delaware market. The District of Delaware case alleges that the companies agree on rates and implement them without effective regulatory review.
DOJ Challenged Beef Packing Merger
October 22, 2008 – 9:41 am
Earlier this year, JBS SA, the third largest beef packer in the US, acquired National Beef Packing and Smithfield, the fourth and fifth largest packers, respectively. The Antitrust Division filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois challenging JBS’s acquisition of National Beef, but not Smithfield. The acquisition would create the largest beef packer with […]
Court Dismisses Sham Litigation Claim, Permits Walker Process Claim to Proceed
October 22, 2008 – 9:33 am
In response to a patent enforcement suit by SanDisk, ST Microelectronic’s filed an antitrust counter-claim arguing that SanDisk’s enforcement action was a sham and that it had obtained its patent fraudulently. The court dismissed the sham litigation counterclaim on the ground that SanDisk’s claim was not objectively groundless. It found sufficient allegations of fraud on […]
DOJ Approves Patent Pool for High Frequency Bagage Tracking
October 22, 2008 – 9:26 am
The Antitrust Division agreed that it would challenge an agreement among seven technology companies owning patents essential to a standard for UHF RFID technology used in airline bagage tracking and event ticketing. The Division agreed that the proposal would lead to more efficient licensing and reduce the potential for blocking technology to slow the development […]
Fraudulent Agreement to Inflate Drug Prices Not Anticompetitive
October 17, 2008 – 11:07 am
On August 26, 2008, a District of Massachusetts Federal District Court dismissed an antitrust class action challenging an agreement between McKesson, a drug wholesaler, and First Databank, a publisher of drug prices, to inflate the average whole price and thus the price paid by insurer providers to pharmacists. Relying on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision […]
9th Circuit Affirms State Law Antitrust Violation
October 15, 2008 – 2:40 pm
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Nineth Circuit recently upheld a verdict finding that a coupon printer’s right-of-first-refusal contracts constituted unlawful exclusive dealing under the Cartwright Act, California’s antitrust law. The court also upheld, however, the lower courts refusal to impose an injunction permanently banning right-of-first-refusal contracts on the ground that they can be […]
EC Fines Banana Producers
October 15, 2008 – 10:58 am
The European Commission has fined banana suppliers €60.3m for coordinated the setting of their quotation prices between 2000 and 2002.
MasterCard Fees Again Under Investigation in Europe
October 14, 2008 – 11:02 am
The European Commission is investing whether MasterCard’s recently announced “scheme fees” are an improper attempt to circumvent the Commission’s recent decision that MasterCard’s cross-border interchange fees were anticompetitive. MasterCard discontinued cross-border interchange fees in June, pending discussion of an acceptable alternative.
Court Denies NHL Motion to Dismiss Based on Single Entity Defense
October 14, 2008 – 10:52 am
Madison Square Garden has sued the National Hockey League, arguing that the league anticompetitively restrains competition among the teams in ways that are not necessary to the joint venture. Most relevant to the case is MSG’s claim that the league has anticompetitively forced all of the teams to use a standardized website. The NHL moved […]