Antitrust Group

Credit Default Swap Class Action Clears Motions To Dismiss And Proceeds To Discovery

By David Golden On Thursday, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York refused to dismiss a class-action antitrust lawsuit involving the $21 trillion credit default swap (“CDS”) market, permitting the case to proceed to discovery. The plaintiffs in In re Credit Default Swaps Antitrust Litigation allege that some of the largest investment banks in the United States –...

MFNs Becoming A Battleground In FCC’s Review Of Comcast/Time Warner Deal

By Allison F. Sheedy The biggest regulatory review of the year—the Federal Communications Commission’s examination of Comcast Corp.’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner, Inc.—has taken an interesting foray into analyzing competitive tactics, with the FCC’s invitation to media companies to confidentially raise concerns about Comcast’s use of most favored nation (“MFN”) provisions in its contracts to...

Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal Of Multi-Billion-Dollar Infringement Claims Against Visa And MasterCard Over Smart Card Technology

By Owen Glist The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld summary judgment against SmartMetric, a maker of biometric smart cards, affirming dismissal of its claims that Visa and MasterCard infringed its patent for credit and debit card technology. After a previous unsuccessful suit against Visa, MasterCard, and American Express over the same patent relating to “contactless” cards (see...

NCAA’s Loss In O’Bannon Trial May Be Only A Partial Victory For Competition

By Jeffrey Shinder and David Scupp Although competition scored a win on Friday in the student athletes’ antitrust suit led by former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon against the NCAA, it wasn’t a complete blowout. Judge Claudia Wilken of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a 99-page decision that permanently enjoins the NCAA from enforcing its blanket restriction on FBS...

Federal Court Denies Class Certification In Intel Antitrust Litigation

By David Golden Plaintiffs in the long-running In re Intel Corporation Microprocessor Antitrust Litigation class action have suffered a major setback with last week’s denial of class certification by the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The lawsuit, filed in 2005, alleges that Intel illegally excluded its major rival, Advanced Micro Devices (commonly referred to as “AMD”), from the U.S....

China Ramps Up Antitrust Enforcement With Second Round Of Raids Of Microsoft Today 

Why you should take notice if you do business in China By Aymeric Dumas-Eymard Almost six years to the day after China began enforcing its Antimonopoly Law (“AML”), China’s antitrust authorities are marking the anniversary with a bang as they followed up last week’s raids of U.S. software giant Microsoft with a second round of raids today. China’s antitrust regulator the State Administration for...

Massachusetts Court Hosts Debate On Whether Partners HealthCare Merger Settlement Will Affect The Common Health Of The Commonwealth

A Massachusetts state court has extended the time for a contentious debate on a proposed antitrust settlement that the Massachusetts State Attorney General says will help hold down medical expenses, and critics say will result in greater market power for the state’s largest health care system. Attorney General Martha Coakley is asking Suffolk Superior Court Judge Janet L. Sanders to approve a consent judgment...