The Antitrust Week In Review

Here are some of the developments in antitrust news this past week that we found interesting and are following.

A Big Tech critic moves closer to leading the Justice Department’s antitrust division.  A Senate committee on Thursday approved a critic of the tech giants to lead the Justice Department’s antitrust division, sending his nomination to the full Senate for a final vote. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted for Jonathan Kanter’s nomination to lead the division without taking a count of how each lawmaker voted. But one Republican senator, John Cornyn of Texas, asked to be marked down as voting against the nomination. Mr. Kanter said during his confirmation hearing that he supported “vigorous antitrust enforcement in the technology area.”

Easier cartel rules for packaging, logistics companies, EU’s Vestager says.  Packaging and logistics companies may soon be able to cooperate on green projects without any fear of flouting cartel rules, EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said on Friday. Under EU cartel rules, companies that collude to illegally fix prices or share markets can face fines up to 10% of their global turnover. Vestager made the comments during an event in Helsinki. “Consider an established market with some bad environmental habits – maybe to do with packaging or logistics. To break out of that rut, companies in that market might need to cooperate, in order to get to a better, more sustainable equilibrium,” she said.

Apple likely to face DOJ antitrust suit- The Information.  The U.S. Department of Justice has accelerated its two-year-old antitrust probe on Apple Inc in the last several months, increasing the likelihood of a lawsuit, the Information reported. Lawyers for the DOJ have asked Apple, its customers and competitors questions about how the company maintains its strict control over the iPhone, the report said, citing two people with knowledge of the investigation.

Edited by Gary J. Malone

Tagged in: Antitrust Enforcement, Antitrust Litigation,