December 13, 2004

There’s something about Georgia

For the second time in a year, the FTC has encountered skepticism from a U.S. District Judge in Atlanta during what would appear to be an otherwise routine consumer protection case.

In June, 2003, U.S. District Judge G. Ernest Tidal ordered the FTC to pay $140,792.80 for attorneys fees and $12,110.28 for costs in a telemarketing case. FTC v. Travel Express International, Inc. [FTC:WATCH No. 616, September 22, 2003]

This year, U.S. District Judge Richard W. Story denied …

November 22, 2004
Washington, D.C.

In this issue:
Merger watch
Judicial activism in antitrust law
Spam summit produces three big ideas
Prerecorded phone call TSR exemption
Antitrust problem or simple tort?
Majoras – three new antitrust programs
MLS blast from the past (1990)
American Airlines slashes Florida fares
Cartels cost more than some thought
Advertising regulation: NADs been busy
Smithfields HSR ne: $2,000,000
ALJ hits M.D.s with modest remedy
Wireless message, cell mergers clear
Calendar

You can come out now, theyre gone

One must never take ones eyes off the U.S. Congress when the members are gathered together in Washington, …

November 8, 2004

FTC to set credit report prices

We have your election results

The votes in the November 2 national election to select a president and members of Congress having been (mostly) counted, what’s the result?

Well, there’s to be a new Senate Commerce Committee Chairman, Alaska Republican Ted Stevens, and informed speculation is that Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden (D) will probably not want to fight him over the nomination of Deborah P. Majoras to be FTC chairman. Recall that, before the election, Wyden infuriated then Commerce …

October 25, 2004

In this issue:
Leary on category management risks

DOJs new merger remedy policy guides

In the past, the practice of the two antitrust enforcement agencies the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division has been to collaborate on sets of joint guidelines. In 2002 and 2003, a series of joint merger remedies workshops were held and the FTC issued its own best practices report in December 2002 (see < http://www.ftc.gov/os/2002/12/bcguidelines021211.htm>). The FTC followed up with a detailed set of guidelines …

October 11, 2004

In this issue
Antitrust Commission meets

FTC clears two big oil deals

(1) Carlyle Group petroleum purchases

Under separate consent agreements with the FTC, announced two days apart, two companies controlled by Washington-based private equity firm The Carlyle Group (Carlyle) will be allowed to acquire $1 billion worth of U.S.-based petroleum pipeline and storage properties from the Shell Oil Company. The two companies, Buckeye Partners and Magellan Midstream Partners, are substantially owned by Carlyles Riverstone Global Energy and Power Fund II (Carlyle/Riverstone).

Carlyle/Riverstone is a joint venture …

September 27, 2004

In this issue:
Merger watch

The Swift Boat – FTC connection

By now, readers will be familiar with television advertisements attacking Sen. John F. Kerreys military service, including allagations that Sen. Kerry didnt earn either his decorations for valor nor his multiple Hearts for wounds sustained in combat. These ads have been and are being paid for by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an organization whose name, as reporting in the general press makes clear, should always be enclosed in quotation marks because there is some question …

September 13, 2004

Merger watch: Bad news for the feds:
Two courts discount customer testimony

It’s a given or at least it has been that when the FTC and the Justice Dept.’s Antitrust Division analyze pending mergers, they look first to the merging parties’ customers and usually only secondarily to the parties’ competitors. Customer complaints, or lack of them, carry substantial weight during an investigation because they are presumed to know from experience more about how a given suppliers’ merger will affect their businesses than could any …

July 26, 2004

If a butter?y ?aps its wings in Africa, can that cause a hurricane in the Caribbean?

If an insurgent in Iraq blows up a pipeline, can that affect a nomination to the Federal Trade Commission?

For a couple of months now, the Government Accountability Of?ce (GAO) and the FTC have been arguing about the effect of petroleum company mergers during the last decade or so have contributed substantially to increased consumer gasoline prices, especially in California. GAO says indeed they have. …

July 12, 2004

In this issue:
FTC-GAO gas price conference offer

Merger watch

Hospital investigation closed

By a 3-2 vote, the Commission has closed a lengthy investigation of the merger of two Waukegan, Illinois hospitals. The majority said that the agencys investigation of the joint operating venture between Victory Memorial Hospital and Provena St. Therese Medical Center did not find sufficient evidence to support a likelihood of consumer harm resulting from this transaction. That 2000 venture created a new entity, Vista Health

Chairman Timothy J. Muris and Commissioners Thomas …

June 21, 2004

Leary suspicious of category captains

Merger watch

It started out as a probable antitrust challenge, but after completing its investigation, the FTC staff has produced whats being called a lukewarm recommendation that the Commission try to block the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco-BAT deal. The directors of the agencys Economics and Competition Bureaus oppose the investigating staffs recommendation and say the commissioners should close the matter without action.

Antitrust merger analysis is always hugely fact-specific, and in this case the data are said to indicate very …

May 17, 2004

In this issue:

FTC, FDA back medical device ads
Merger Guidelines worldwide
Dodging House porn mandate
Thompson blasts mortgage settlement
Canada investigates gasoline prices, too
Court parses bid-rigging law delicately
Up north, phone book scam risks jail
Gates, insurance firm run afoul of HSR
Moving firm rips off Defense Dept.
Dutch tanker firm to plead guilty
Hybrids’ gasoline mileage claims
E.C. investigating plastic bag industry
Calendar
People

Merger watch

FTC Chairman Timothy J. Muris’ planned resignation from the FTC [see story, P. 19] and the White House plan to replace him with former Justice Dept. Antitrust Division official Deborah Majoras …

May 3, 2004

ICN – Seoul results
FTC amicus brief in FCRA “sham” case
Two states assess blame for energy hikes
House GOP: regulate spyware dammit!
Harbour: vertical enforcement matters
Judge to FTC: hands off the lawyers
Intel v. AMD at Supreme Court
Class-action book case not hopeful
Dutch shipping firm pleads guilty
Merger watch
NOPEC is back; what about Iraq?
First CAN-SPAM charges
Calendar
Employment

States, DOJ bring Medco PBM fraud charges

The U.S. Justice Dept. and twenty state attorneys general have announced partial settlements of fraud charges against Medco Health Solutions. The settlements provide $20 million to the states in damages, …

April 19, 2004

In this issue:
Merger watch
NAS publishes its patent report
Life, liberty, low gasoline prices
Senate NOPEC legislation returns
Teaching hospitals antitrust exemption
Pennsylvania attacks “drug arbitrage”
FTC to examine RFID technology
Nix on Rhode Island Rx pharmacy bills
Feds, states amend Oracle complaint
ICN conference convenes in Seoul
FTC staff recommends “trans fat” DV
Porn spam rules in effect May 19
Calendar
Remembering Janet Steiger

It’s a boy!

President George W. Bush has nominated Jon D. Leibowitz to be an FTC commissioner, replacing Mozelle W. Thompson, whose term expired a mere six months ago. The White House sent the …

April 5, 2004

In this issue:
FTC, 6 states sue to block coal merger
FTC backs Internet wine, contact lens sales
Congress tells FTC to study PBMs
FTC amicus brief in generic drug case
FDCPA needs some tweaking
Programmers: patents too easy to get
Leary, IRS on debt management scams
Canada drafts new merger guidelines
Canada closes Rx “evergreening” case
FTC fixes up U.S. merger guidelines
New folks at the Antitrust Division
FTC shuts down ‘phishing’ scam
Calendar
Employment

Merger watch

Cephalon’s offer not to try to extend its patent on its breakthrough pain medication when it expires, thus allowing one or more generic …

March 22, 2004

In this issue:
FTC weighs in on Class-action fees
No like violence on TV? Tell the FTC
Foraging for FACTA facts
Nix-nix Kansas gasoline price bill
Got a 2d Request? Odds 7-3 against you
Parsing Genzyme statements
Wanna lose weight? Count calories.
CAN-SPAM questions
Yikes! West U.S. gasoline price spikes
GAO looks at predatory lending
UK’s Vickers sees merger convergence
The Microsoft litigation machine
DOJ explains merger closing decision
Calendar

Merger watch

Cephalon, Inc. has proposed an antitrust remedy to persuade the FTC not to challenge its acquisition of CIMA LABS Inc. It’s understood that Cephalon has offered a promise not …

March 8, 2004

In this issue
Fishery quotas conundrums
It’s gasoline price hike season again
HUD mortgage disclosures confusing?
Some folks want more regulation
Advertising to children and obesity
Got something to say about spam?
aai Column: Microsoft
Merger watch
OPEC rides again; NOPEC back?
Judge backs FTC’s Telemarking Rule
Credit histories and insurance rates
DOJ sues to block Oracle-PeopleSoft
ALJ tosses FTC’s Rambus charges
Calendar

Foreign assistance

When the New York Times reported on March 7 its discovery that “the Justice Department is sending a high-level team of prosecutors and investigators to Iraq to take charge of assembling and organizing the evidence to …

February 23, 2004

Washington, D.C.

In this issue
Circuit court OKs DNC list
Muris: Market concentration stats ‘simplistic’
Wyden: investigate refinery closing
More Canadian private actions
Merger watch: who’s the Mouse house?
CBBB refers online banking ad
Telemarketers lose some anonymity
San Francisco MDs settle price-fix case
Post-consummation hospital case
FTC in the asbestos clean up business
$400,000 COPPA civil penalty
Credit card marketing from Canada
Calendar
People

Time to play “Monopsony”?

The FTC’s investigation of Caremark Rx, Inc.’s acquisition of AdvancePCS [FTC:WATCH No. 623, January 12] looked not only at the possible anticompetitive effects in horizontal markets, but also in vertical, monopsony markets according …

February 9, 2004

ABA sections’ advice Japan’s FTC
Leary: consumer protection-antitrust conflict
FTC/DOJ FTAIA amicus brief
FTC 2005: more people, fewer dollars
FTC to implement Contact Lens Rule
FACT Act notice
New data for merger workshop
FTC drafts sex-spam label
Merger watch
Report from Canada
Kickbacks: Ex-HBO exec pleads guilty
Printing/graphics kickbacks, too
Calendar
Employment

Take that, Easterbrook!
Court says NFL eligibility rule a “group boycott” and “naked restraint”

No matter how hard the National Football League “perseverates,” it cannot keep Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett from entering the annual player draft U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin ruled …

January 26, 2004

In this issue:
Unocal amicus festival
Federal Register credit notices
Merger Guidelines workshop
Consumer fraud complaints rise
Cautious support for futures exchange
Section 8 thresholds raised
Dentsply heads for Third Circuit
Microsoft faces the music
Road, scrapmetal bid-rigging charges
FTC accepts Rx merger to monopoly
Prior approval requirement removed
Telemarketers pay $839,000 redress
Calendar
People

Merger watch – Rx drugs, software and tobacco

Cephalon, Inc. received an HSR Second Request from the FTC last week in connection with its pending acquisition of CIMA LABS Inc. [FTC:WATCH No. 623, January 12]

Abbott Labs’ proposed acquisition of Therasense poses antitrust questions concerning competition in …

January 12, 2004

FACT Act sics FTC on identity theft
Microsoft watch
Court denies Body Flex injunction
aai Column: copyrights and patents
Calendar
FTC staff to FDA: obesity &food labels
Merger workshop on HHIs
Generic drug agreements must be filed
Privacy notice rewrite
Hospital can share Rx savings
ABA advice to E.C.
DOJ explains recording JV decision
Commission reverses Schering I.D.
N.C. Hospitals, physicians charged

Merger watch

The FTC closed its investigation into Sunoco, Inc.’s proposed acquisition of the Coastal Eagle Point Oil Co. on December 29, rejecting objections that by adding a fourth refinery to the three it already owns in …