Although most supply agreements are a benign business reality,
when favorable terms negotiated with a supplier foreclose the
buyer's rivals from competing, the antitrust waters can get
murky, and buyers, especially those with market power, risk
government investigations and private litigation.
In a recent enforcement action, the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) on November 21 entered into a consent order with Pool
Corporation, Inc....
Specific Questions relating to this article should be addressed directly to the author.
A number of cases involving former executives have received national attention recently and serve as a good reminder that trade-secret, non-solicitation, and non-competition controversies can arise at the highest level of a company.
On March 30, United States District Court Judge Denise Page Hood (E.D. Mich.) handed Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan a victory, dismissing an antitrust action filed against it by the City of Pontiac in which the City alleged that Blue Cross’s use of "most favored nation" clauses in its provider contracts violated the antitrust laws.
On 28 March 2012 the European Commission (EC) imposed another fine for obstruction of one of its "inspections" (dawn raids). This was the first fine for obstructing the EC’s access to emails during a dawn raid.
A plea agreement entered into last week with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) provides a sobering reminder of the serious consequence of obstruction of justice, and highlights the fact that such obstruction issues can arise even in connection with seemingly routine merger investigations if key documents intentionally are altered before being submitted to the government.
On March 27, the New York Court of Appeals (New York’s highest state court), held that the state’s antitrust law does not have extraterritorial reach in Global Reinsurance Corp. v. Equitas Ltd.
A senior executive of a Korean manufacturer of Automated Teller Machines recently agreed to serve a five-month prison sentence in the United States for tampering with business documents during the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) review of the proposed acquisition by his employer, Hyosung Corporation, of one of its US competitors.
The district court in the Southeastern Milk Antitrust Litigation5 excluded a plaintiffs’ expert because the expert testified that his definition of the relevant geographic market did not comport with the standard enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Tampa Electric v. Nashville Coal Co.
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