Congress Hears Challenges to the Consumer Welfare Standard
The purpose and goals of United States antitrust policy have not remained static over time. Since 1979, the Supreme Court has focused on a “consumer welfare” theory of antitrust law. See Reiter v....
View Article“New Brandeis” Antitrust Concepts Hit the Campaign Trail
As we discussed in a previous post, a new school of thought about antitrust law (or, rather, a new application of old antitrust principles) has received increasing attention in recent months. The...
View ArticleUpdate: NCAA Loses in Suit Challenging Student-Athlete Compensation and...
Last year we wrote about the summary judgment decision in an MDL class action then pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, In re NCAA Athletic Grant-In-Aid Cap...
View ArticleIn Long-Awaited Opinion, Court Rules That Keurig Must Face Antitrust Suits by...
In a recently unsealed opinion, U.S. District Judge Broderick (S.D.N.Y.) explained his reasoning for allowing a consolidated antitrust suit to proceed against Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. and its...
View ArticleEvolving Antitrust Principles in the Age of Big Tech: Supreme Court Allows...
In a recent decision decided on May 13, 2019, the Supreme Court allowed an antitrust suit to move forward against Apple. Consumers brought suit based on Apple’s operation of its App Store – which...
View ArticleCongress, Regulators, and Justice Department Gear Up to Investigate “Big...
U.S. lawmakers, regulators, and agencies charged with antitrust oversight have long been criticized for failing to act on alleged anticompetitive activity by the world’s largest technology...
View ArticleNew Investigations of Large Tech Firms Reflect Continuing Influence of New...
Public discourse about antitrust law has been expanded to include a wider range of ideas about the purpose of antitrust law. “New Brandeisians” believe that the consumer welfare standard, which...
View ArticleSecond Circuit Denies En Banc Review, Entrenches Circuit Split in Liquor Law...
In February 2019, the Second Circuit held that Connecticut’s “post-and-hold” alcohol pricing statute is not preempted by Section 1 of the Sherman Act. In September 2019, following a petition for en...
View ArticleClasses Certified in In re Suboxone “Product-Hopping” Case
Recently, Judge Goldberg in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania certified two classes of plaintiffs asserting antitrust claims based on alleged “product hopping” by the manufacturer of branded tablets...
View ArticleUpdate: DOJ Announces It Will Move to Lower the Curtain on 70-Year-Old...
Last October, we discussed the Department of Justice’s announcement that it would be revisiting the 1948 Paramount Consent Decrees, a series of movie-studio concessions and divestments resulting from a...
View Article2019 Pharmaceutical Antitrust Round-Up: A Year in Pay for Delay [Part 1]
2019 witnessed a number of developments in challenges to reverse-payment settlements. In its first decision on a pay-for-delay settlement since the Supreme Court’s seminal 2013 decision in FTC v....
View Article2019 Pharmaceutical Antitrust Round-Up: A Year in Pay for Delay [Part 2]
Yesterday we discussed 2019’s most significant developments in challenges to reverse-payment settlements. Today we continue our analysis of recent trends in pharmaceutical antitrust actions with a...
View ArticleThe New Brandeis School Manifesto
As this blog has previously reported, new strains of thought about antitrust law are blossoming in the United States. The “New Brandeisians” challenge the Chicago School “consumer welfare” standard...
View ArticleThe Democratic Presidential Candidates and Antitrust
With the Democratic primary process in full swing, we thought it fitting to take a look at where the candidates stand with respect to antitrust issues. As it turns out, this is a fairly active...
View ArticleImpax Oral Argument at Fifth Circuit Reveals Thorny Issues and Uncertain Outcome
On June 9, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard oral argument in Impax Laboratories, Inc., Etc. v. Federal Trade Commission. The appeal by pharmaceutical manufacturer Impax...
View ArticleAntitrust Plaintiffs Complain of Patent “Thickets”
For years, antitrust commentators have warned of threats to innovation and competition posed by “thickets” of patents—the “dense web[s] of overlapping intellectual property rights that a company must...
View ArticleDoes HHS’s Elimination of the Safe Harbor for Manufacturer Rebates Leave...
On November 20, 2020, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) finalized a rule to take effect in 2022, which eliminates the safe harbor under the federal anti-kickback statute for...
View ArticleMajor Development in BCBS Association Antitrust Litigation
Antitrust litigation has been ongoing for several years in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama against one of the biggest business associations in America, the Blue Cross Blue...
View ArticleWhat’s Ahead in 2021 for Reverse-Payment Settlement Litigation
Litigation concerning reverse-payment settlements remains active. In the coming year, we expect to see material developments regarding treatment of non-monetary settlements of underlying patent...
View ArticleThe FTC Sues Endo and Impax Over Opana ER Agreement . . . Again
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the FTC is suing pharmaceutical manufacturers Endo and Impax over an alleged “reverse payment” agreement to reduce competition in the market for Opana ER, an...
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