December 19, 1994

Antitrust Division probes auto sales on two fronts

Former Assistant Attorney General James F. Rill has given the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division a powerful report that suggests ways the Division can crack open the domestic Japanese market for U.S. automobile sales, FTC:WATCH has learned.

Rill was retained by the American Automobile Manufacturer’s Association after he left the Justice Department and after the Automobile Manufacturers Association kicked Japanese manufacturers with plants in the U.S. out of the association and renamed itself.

Rill’s specific recommendations could not be learned, but AAMA …

December 5, 1994

Court finds department store market,
Orders May to rescind acquisition
“Customers know a department store when they see it.”

Despite the existence of specialty stores and discount retailers, a federal court has found that there is a discrete product market consisting of “traditional department stores” and ordered a department store chain to undo an acquisition of another, regional chain consummated earlier this year.

U.S. District Judge David G. Larimer said November 30 that he was particularly convinced by the testimony of Frederick R. Warren-Boulton, Chief Economist …

November 21, 1994

“This is really going to be interesting”

Assistant Attorney General Anne K. Bingaman says that was her first thought when she woke up on November 9 to discover that Republicans will be the majority in the House and Senate for the next two years. (Her husband Jeff, a Democrat, was reelected to the Senate from New Mexico.)

She’s surely right about that, because as usual the heavy hitters are already having trouble deciding which side of the plate to bat from.

…

November 7, 1994

Jurisdictional battle over computer chip tying case

The FTC and the Justice Departments Antitrust Division are locked in bureaucratic combat over the FTCs determination to commence an investigation of Intel Corp. for allegedly tying the sale of computer chips to other products, FTC:WATCH has learned.

Within the last two years, the FTC opened and then closed without action an investigation into allegations that Intel was tying the purchase of 486 CPU chips to the purchase of 386 chips. In the past, that history would …

October 24, 1994

Merger Watch

Second requests are often issued by the FTC or the Antitrust Division at the very end of the Hart-Scott-Rodino waiting period because the two agencies have used much of the time arguing over which one of them will review the transaction.

That, however, is not the case with Viacoms planned sale of its cable television properties. Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone has said he wants to get out of the hardware business and concentrate on selling software (e.g. motion pictures and other programming) and …

October 10, 1994

Senate confirms Varney for two-year term

Suddenly last week, the Clinton Administration moved to fill two existing vacancies on the five member FTC.

Clinton Administration Cabinet Secretary Christine A. Varney was nominated to serve out the term of Commissioner Dennis A. Yao, and a White House press release announced that Robert Pitofsky, of counsel to Arnold & Porter and a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, will be nominated to chair the agency.

Varney was nominated on October 3, in …

September 26, 1994

Politics: looks like trade association dues may rise in 1995

When the 104th Congress convenes next year, a Congressman with a 100% Consumer Federation of America rating is likely to be in charge of FTC oversight.

Rep. Al Swift (D-Wash.), chairman of the House of Representatives subcommittee with jurisdiction over the FTC, is retiring at the end of this Congress. He would likely have been succeeded by Oklahoma Democrat Mike Synar. But Synar lost his primary election this month, placing 14-year veteran Rep. Ron …

September 12, 1994

Advertising for eye surgery under investigation

The FTC’s Boston Regional Office is investigating advertising for the highly lucrative optical surgical procedure known as radial keratotomy, FTC:WATCH has learned.

In mid-July, investigators sent “inquiry” letters to at least three ophthalmological practices — in Illinois, Oklahoma and California — asking them voluntarily to produce “all documents concerning the Practice’s promotion and/or marketing of its radial keratotomy services, including but not limited to documents concerning [the practice's] overall approach to marketing, such as marketing plans …

August 1, 1994

Health care hostages and Clayton Act enforcement

Can determined corporations avoid FTC merger enforcement by threatening to close manufacturing plants and terminate employment?

Last Friday, under heavy political pressure from the South Carolina Congressional delegation, the FTC commissioners voted 3-2 to close an investigation of the acquisition of a roofing plant by Firestone Tire & Rubber, a subsidiary of the Bridgestone Corp., FTC:WATCH has learned.

Although there were several bidders for the M.A. Hanna Co.s Colonial Rubber Works plant near Kingstree, S.C., …

June 27, 1994

Merger Watch

FTC antitrust investigators are preparing to challenge a proposed computer software merger, a canned fruit supply agreement and a petroleum refinery merger, FTC:WATCH has learned.

In addition, Hoffman LaRoche’s planned acquisition of Syntex Corp. has raised competition concerns “in a number of product markets,” according to an informed source, and an international chemical joint venture has been stymied for several months by an agency request for additional information which has required the translation into English of many boxes of documents.

…

June 6, 1994

FTC-prompted reexamination threatens Hoffman-LaRoche drug patent

Following an 18-month reexamination prompted by an FTC antitrust investigation, a Patent and Trademark Office examiner has rejected a nearly decade-old patent granted to Hoffman-LaRoche for production of a form of the drug interferon. The patent included protection for experiments that — by the time the company demonstrated with adequate specificity a product that was patentable — others with ordinary skill in the field could duplicate, the examiner said, and the resultant human leukocyte interferon (HuLeIF) was …

May 23, 1994

Nutrition in the 1990′s: Egg order attacked

The FTC’s pending consent order against Eggland’s Best, Inc. for allegedly deceptively advertising that its eggs do not increase cholesterol levels in the people who eat them properly is being swamped with criticism during the public comment period as too harsh by advertising trade associations, nutritionists, egg producers and food brokers and as too weak by a consumerist group and a state attorney general’s office which claims to have evidence that consumers have been duped to the detriment of …

May 9, 1994

FTC continues to be stymied by Joe Camel case

Nearly a year after FTC staff lawyers recommended that the Commission charge RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co. with unfairly advertising cigarettes to children by means of the controversial “Joe Camel” cartoon campaign, agency commissioners have been unable to decide how to dispose of the recommendation. Although Chairman Janet D. Steiger recommended issuance of a formal administrative complaint last Fall, her motion expired earlier this year because months had gone by without a vote by a colleague one way …

April 25, 1994

Book publishers pricing cases:
six settlements, one new law suit

In January, 1989, the FTC charged six book publishers with violating the Robinson-Patman Act by giving unjustified discounts to retail chains. The cases were entered into litigation before an administrative law judge until September, 1992, when FTC lawyers and counsel for the publishers agreed to settle the charges.

These settlements were put on hold, FTC:WATCH has learned, when staff investigators decided that a seventh publisher — Bantam-Doubleday-Dell — should be charged …

April 11, 1994

Defense merger task force backs continued antitrust enforcement

A Defense Department task force established last year to evaluate defense industry mergers has recommended that the Pentagon hire an experienced antitrust lawyer to coordinate Department reviews of defense contractor mergers and serve as liaison with — and early warning system for — the FTC and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.

“Review of defense industry mergers and joint ventures by the antitrust enforcement agencies is in the public interest and continues to protect DoD (and …

March 28, 1994

Kessler pursues nicotine issue with FTC data

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David A. Kessler has personally asked the FTC to provide him with “any data and information for the U.S. sales-weighted average tar and sales-weighted average nicotine values as far back as possible until present” and “all data on nicotine: TPM [total particulate matter] ratio for high tar (above 15mg),, low tar (6-15mg) and ultra low tar (1-5mg)”, FTC:WATCH has learned.

It is understood that the purpose of this request is to enable …

March 14, 1994

RJR gets to see proposed “Joe Camel” complaint;
Congress gets interested

At a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, March 1, the commissioners voted to allow FTC staff members to provide lawyers for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. with a copy of a proposed complaint alleging that the “Joe Camel” advertising campaign illegally encourages minors to start smoking cigarettes. [FTC:WATCH No. 407, February 28]

A procedural hang up and apparent breakdown in communications within the FTC had created a situation in which the staff-proposed complaint — …

February 28, 1994

The great dromedary debate:
What we have here is a failure to communicate

Who’s afraid of a cartoon camel?

Maybe nobody at the FTC, but on February 17th, no Commissioner having voted one way or the other for 3 months, a proposed complaint against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. for allegedly using advertising to encourage minors to take up cigarette smoking dropped into administrative limbo.*

Some at the FTC say this is no big deal, not unique, that other, less visible and less …

February 14, 1994

Nutrition ad case rejuvenates Moakley Bill

FTC inability to act in less than a year against advertising that claimed a brand of eggs “won’t increase your serum cholesterol” has revived Congressional interest in legislation introduced in the last session of Congress to require the FTC to apply the standards developed by the FDA for nutrition labeling to advertising claims.

Rep. Joseph Moakley’s (D-Mass.) legislation would require the FTC to apply FDA rules to advertising “to the fullest extent feasible.” According to Capitol Hill …

January 31, 1994

Health care, defense issues remain in the forefront

At press time, the FTC had scheduled a meeting for 10:00am January 31 to discuss staff proposals to seek preliminary injunctions blocking Hospital Corporation of America’s acquisition of Columbia Hospitals and the merger of the only two acute care hospitals in Denver, Colorado, FTC:WATCH has learned.

It is understood that antitrust objections to the multi-billion dollar HCA/Columbia deal rested only on the parties’ reluctance to agree in advance to divest an acquired hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, …

January 17, 1994

Hospital, communications, department store mergers
attract investigators

It’s doubtful that such a thing as an antitrust “department store” market exists, but last week government antitrust lawyers were wondering if the impending Federated-Macy merger should be examined in the context of a market for shopping mall anchor stores, FTC:WATCH has learned.

If it is true that major malls need an “anchor store,” that anchor stores are usually department stores and that the Federated-Macy deal would give the combined entity monopsony power over mall developers in some …

July 11, 1994

Staff developing restraint of trade case against pro golf group

A lengthy FTC investigation of the PGA Tour, Inc., conducted without use of compulsory process, has convinced antitrust investigators that restraints on golfers’ participation in non-PGA Tour events are illegal and should be the target of an administrative complaint, FTC:WATCH has learned.

The PGA Tour is an association of professional golfers who play in weekly tournaments and is separate and distinct from the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) which, says a PGA Tour spokesman, includes all professional golfers, including the local …