Author: Luis Blanquez When someone new enters a market with a different or better idea or way of doing business, existing competitors must also innovate, lower their price, or otherwise improve their offerings to maintain their position in the market. That is why competition is good for consumers. But sometimes…
Articles Posted in Antitrust News
Classic Antitrust Cases: Trinko, linkLine and the House Report on Big Tech
Author: Steven J. Cernak On October 6, 2020, the Antitrust Subcommittee of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee issued its long-anticipated Majority Report of its Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets. As expected, the Report detailed its findings from its investigation of Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon along with recommendations for…
The Seventh Circuit Explains the “Co-Conspiracy Exception” to the Illinois Brick Rule in Healthcare Antitrust Lawsuit
Author: Jarod Bona Antitrust law evolves in such a way that opinions from federal appellate courts are always interesting in how they affect the doctrine. But there are a select few judges who earn even closer attention when they write an antitrust opinion. Judge Diane P. Wood of the United…
California Supreme Court Confirms Independent Wrongfulness Requirement for Certain Tortious Interference Claims and Clarifies Section 16600 Standard
Author: Jarod Bona Competitors battle in the marketplace and sometimes battle in the courts. Bona Law is an antitrust and competition boutique law firm, but most people think of the “competition” part of that description as redundant to the antitrust label. That is not a surprise because outside of the…
Big Tech Hearings: What Do They Tell Us About Amazon and Antitrust?
Author: Steven Cernak The U.S. House Antitrust Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee’s recent hearings into “big tech” and antitrust were “must see TV” for antitrust attorneys. Over the five hours of testimony, many interesting questions were asked of the leaders of Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon; unfortunately, the format often…
An Antitrust Fight Between the Talent Agencies and the Writers About How Hollywood Does Business
Author: Jarod Bona As an antitrust lawyer, I find it interesting to see the inner workings of different types of markets—how people and companies buy and sell things. And the entertainment industry is one of the more fascinating ones. The entertainment industry includes an interesting mix of concentrated players at…
US Antitrust Agencies Release Updated Vertical Merger Guidelines
Authors: Steven Cernak and Jarod Bona In big antitrust news, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division released a draft of an update to the 1984 Vertical Merger Guidelines (VMG) on January 10, 2020. Only three of the five FTC commissioners voted to release the draft with…
Antitrust News: The Eleventh Circuit Agrees that the Supreme Court’s Phoebe Putney Decision Really Did Change the State-Action-Immunity Test from the Earlier Hallie and Omni Decisions
Author: Luis Blanquez The Eleventh Circuit recently rejected the City of LaGrange’s attempt to assert state-action immunity from antitrust liability in Diverse Power, Inc. v. City of Lagrange, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 24772 (11th Cir. Ga., Aug. 20, 2019). And here is why. In a nutshell, the City of LaGrange…
Antitrust News: The Department of Justice Wants You to Have a Strong Antitrust Compliance Policy
Author: Jarod Bona You might hear from an antitrust attorney that it is important to have a strong antitrust compliance policy. And you may think to yourself, yes, I suppose it is. Then you go about your over-packed day, periodically seeing from other professionals that whatever their specialty is, you…
Antitrust News: The International Competition Network Standardizes Due Process Principles for Antitrust and Competition Enforcement Agencies Worldwide
Author: Luis Blanquez The U.S. Department of Justice recently published that the International Competition Network (“ICN”) has approved the Framework on Competition Agency Procedures (“CAP”), for antitrust enforcement agencies around the world to promote fundamental due process principles in competition law investigations and enforcement. This is an opt-in framework, based…