The Antitrust Week In Review
Here are some of the developments in antitrust news this past week that we found interesting and are following.
Meta cannot delay US FTC from reopening privacy probe, court says. Meta Platforms cannot delay the U.S. Federal Trade Commission from reopening a probe into alleged privacy failures by its Facebook unit while the company pursues a lawsuit challenging the agency’s authority, a U.S. court ruled. The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in its order found that Meta had not shown its challenge was likely to be successful. The court said Meta has “not met its heavy burden of showing entitlement to an injunction pending appeal.”
T-Mobile can appeal to block consumer lawsuit over $26 bln Sprint deal. T-Mobile has won its bid to appeal a judge’s ruling that allowed a potential class of millions of Verizon and AT&T subscribers to move ahead with a lawsuit challenging the company’s $26 billion purchase of rival Sprint in 2020. Illinois U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin ruled that T-Mobile can appeal his order to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now, rather than at a later stage in the case. The private consumer lawsuit alleges the merger has caused Verizon and AT&T, which are not defendants, to charge more for wireless service.
Apple defeats consumers’ crypto-payment antitrust case for now. A federal judge in San Francisco has dismissed a consumer lawsuit accusing Apple of driving up fees at platforms such as Venmo and Cash App by prohibiting payment apps from implementing cryptocurrency transactions. In a ruling, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called the proposed class action “speculative” and said it “suffers from several fatal problems.” He gave the plaintiffs 21 days to amend their complaint. The November 2023 lawsuit alleged Apple was imposing restrictions on cryptocurrency technology in its popular App Store, harming competition for peer-to-peer payments and pushing up fees for cash and credit card transactions at PayPal’s Venmo and Block’s Cash App.
Edited by Gary J. Malone