On March 28, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (“the agencies”) jointly submitted a Statement of Interest on behalf of the United States in Cornish-Adebiyi v. Caesars...more
On April 29, 2024, a federal judge in the Southern District of Ohio dismissed a lawsuit brought by a group of physicians accusing the health-care provider Adena Health System of anticompetitive conduct, including through the...more
The Seventh Circuit recently revived an antitrust challenge to a clause in McDonald’s franchise agreements barring franchises from poaching other franchises’ employees. (See our previous coverage of antitrust challenges to...more
On July 13, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit declined to block the $315 million purchase of Imperial Sugar Company (“Imperial”) by United States Sugar Corporation (“U.S. Sugar”), rejecting the Department...more
Two labor-market criminal antitrust trials recently ended in acquittals, further demonstrating the challenges the United States has faced in this area (See our previous coverage of this prosecution trend, reported on: Feb....more
Commissioner Alvaro M. Bedoya of the Federal Trade Commission recently addressed a key tension brewing in the consumer protection and antitrust spaces since the rise of the app-based gig economy: whether gig workers...more
In a recent lawsuit, the State of Ohio has accused certain pharmaceutical benefit managers, or “PBMs,” of violating state antitrust laws. According to the complaint, the PBMs have leveraged their market dominance to enrich...more
In a recently unsealed opinion, a court in the District of New Jersey has declined to certify a direct-purchaser class in In re Lamictal ("Lamictal") on numerosity grounds. It joins the growing number of courts in recent...more
Two of the Department of Justice’s labor-market criminal antitrust prosecutions have seen interesting recent developments. (See our previous coverage of this prosecution trend, reported on: Feb. 9th; May 2nd; Sept. 22nd; and...more
Last month, the DOJ finally secured its first criminal conviction for a labor-market antitrust offense. (Check here for our previous coverage of this prosecution trend.) VDA OC LLC (“VDA”), a healthcare staffing company,...more
The DOJ’s efforts to prosecute alleged wage-fixing and employee non-solicitation agreements have continued to develop over the last few months. Most notably, the DOJ nearly secured its first criminal conviction on a no-poach...more
Recently Judge Matthew F. Kennelly of the Northern District of Illinois denied the motions to dismiss filed by 17 top private universities in a class action lawsuit accusing the universities of conspiring to fix prices by...more
The Tenth Circuit recently became the first federal court of appeals to address an antitrust challenge to a relationship central to modern pharmaceutical drug markets: the price negotiations between drug companies and...more
Missouri resident Elliot Conrad Dale recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline (“GSK”), claiming GSK employed a “device hopping” scheme to ensure uninterrupted patent and regulatory protection for its...more
Last month, the first two trials arising from the DOJ’s recent push to criminally prosecute wage-fixing and employee non-solicitation agreements both ended in acquittals on the antitrust charges. In United States v. Jindal,...more
Under the Biden Administration, the FTC and DOJ have voiced a commitment to an expansive enforcement of antitrust law. The recent confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to assume Justice Breyer’s position on the Supreme...more
Two weeks ago, the District of Colorado denied defendants’ motion to dismiss in a criminal case targeting agreements between competitors not to solicit (or “poach”) each other’s employees. United States v. DaVita Inc. et...more
The Fourth Circuit ruled last month that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority, which does business as Atrium Health, is immune from antitrust damages as a “special function governmental unit” under the Local...more
On April 13, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its long-anticipated decision in Impax v. FTC, marking the first time an appellate court has weighed in on the merits of a so-called reverse payment case...more
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 oxymorphone extended...more
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 Shield Association...more
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 marks the first time a...more
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 that has dominated...more
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 discussion of cases...more
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. Actavis, the FTC took an...more