On June 29, the FTC approved a final consent order in the matter concerning DirectRevenue, LLC, et al. with a vote of 4-1, with Commissioner Jon Leibowitz voting no and issuing a dissenting statement.
The FTC also approved a final consent order in the matter of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, with a vote of 5-0.
On June 28, the FTC issued a complaint challenging Whole Foods Market Inc.’s approximately $670 million acquisition of Wild Oats Markets Inc. under the grounds that this transaction would violate federal antitrust laws by eliminating the substantial competition between these two uniquely close competitors in the operation of premium natural and organic supermarkets nationwide. The FTC contends that if the transaction goes forward Whole Foods would have the ability to raise prices and reduce quality and services.
On June 7, 2007, the judge issued a temporary restraining order under which the parties may not consummate the deal until after a preliminary injunction hearing, which is scheduled for July 31 and August 1, 2007.
The FTC’s vote to issue the complaint was 5-0.
On June 26, 2007 the Japanese Government’s Advisory Panel on Basic Issues Regarding the Anti-Monopoly Act (“the Panel”) concluded its series of roundtable discussions. Since 2005, the Panel has met in order to discuss and update the Act Concerning Prohibition of Private Monopolization and Maintenance of Fair Trade. The Panel was directed by the Chief Cabinet Secretary and heard testimony from a wide range of experts and concerned citizens. The statement issued by the Panel, and summarized below, is the culmination of these meetings.
Continue reading " JAPANESE ADVISORY PANEL ISSUES RECOMENDATIONS " »
On June 21, a federal court stopped an operation that allegedly victimized Spanish-speaking consumers nationwide by posing as debt collectors seeking payments consumers did not owe.
From 2003 to 2005 the defendants had been allegedly selling an English-language instruction course, “Inglés con Ritmo,” advertised on Spanish-language television and the defendants’ Web sites, www.tonorecords.com and www.tonomusic.com, stating that it was free due to government or non-profit subsidies. Inquiring consumers were told that a shipping and handling fee of $100 to $169 applied. Since 2006, the complaint states, the defendants, posing as third-party debt collectors, told consumers they owed money, typically $900, and repeatedly called them, even though the evidence shows that they owe no money.
Continue reading " FTC Stops Alleged Extortion Scheme Aimed At Hispanics Nationwide " »
On June 19, the DOJ reached an agreement with Microsoft Corporation to resolve a complaint by Google regarding Microsoft’s desktop search function in Windows Vista. In a joint filing with the court, the DOJ, 17 state Attorneys General, and the District of Columbia said that the agreement, which aims to promote user choice, will resolve any issues the complaint may raise under the final judgments. The desktop search functionality in Vista, known as “Instant Search,” allows users to enter a search query into a text box and receive a list of results from the user’s hard drive that contain the search term.
The Antitrust Division made its views known as part of a six-month joint status period to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The report filed with the court is the eighth such report filed since the court entered the final judgments in November 2002.
On June 6, following the NorVergence Inc. telecommunications fraud case won by the FTC in 2005, the agency charged a company with violating federal law by helping to finance the scheme and continuing to seek payment from defrauded consumers.
In 2004, a federal court voided 1,600 NorVergence contracts with small businesses and religious and other nonprofit organizations that were misled by promised savings on phone and Internet services. The contracts purported to be long-term rental agreements for a relatively inexpensive device that NorVergence falsely claimed would create the savings. NorVergence was forced into bankruptcy, and the promised services stopped. The judgment the FTC obtained against NorVergence left unaffected thousands of rental agreements NorVergence had already sold to finance companies.
Continue reading " FTC Charges Company With Financing Fraudulent Telecom Services Scheme " »
On June 12, the DOJ, First Busey Corporation, a financial holding company headquartered in Urbana, Illinois, with approximately $2.5 billion in assets, and Main Street Trust Inc., a financial holding company headquartered in Champaign, Illinois with about $1.6 billion in assets, entered into a settlement where the parties agreed to sell five branch offices with approximately $110 million in deposits in Champaign County, Illinois, in order to resolve antitrust concerns about the companies’ pending merger. Without the divestitures, the DOJ concluded, the merger likely would adversely affect competition in the local markets for commercial banking and retail banking services. The proposed merger will combine two major local banks based in central Illinois, Busey Bank of Urbana and Main Street Bank & Trust of Champaign. The merged bank will have approximately $3.6 billion in assets and $2.7 billion in total deposits.
On June 12, the FTC asked the court to halt the deceptive practices and misrepresentations and to freeze the BurnLounge’s assets, pending a trial, to preserve them for consumer redress. On June 6, 2007, the FTC filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against BurnLounge, Inc. The complaint charged that BurnLounge held an illegal pyramid scheme by selling opportunities to operate on-line digital music stores. The FTC is seeking a permanent halt to the illegal pyramid practices as well as other illegal practices alleged in the complaint.
Continue reading " FTC Asks Court to Shut Down Illegal Pyramid Operation " »
On June 11, the DOJ issued a statement after announcing the closing of the investigation of CBOT Holdings Inc. by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc. After an extensive investigation of both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (“CME”) proposed acquisition of CBOT and the 2003 agreement under which CME provides clearing services to CBOT, the Antitrust Division determined that the evidence did not indicate that either the transaction or the clearing agreement is likely to reduce competition substantially. More specifically, the Division determined that although the two exchanges account for most financial futures (and in particular, interest rate futures) traded on exchanges in the United States: their products are not close substitutes and seldom compete head to head, but rather provide market participants with the means to mitigate different risks; and they are, absent the merger, unlikely to introduce new products that compete directly with the other’s entrenched products, in part due to the difficulty of overcoming an incumbent exchange’s liquidity advantage in an established futures contract.
On June 5, the FTC authorized the staff to seek a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in federal district court to halt Whole Foods Market, Inc.’s approximately $670 million acquisition of its chief rival, Wild Oats Markets, Inc., pending an administrative trial on the merits. According to the complaint, the transaction would violate federal antitrust laws by eliminating the substantial competition between these two uniquely close competitors in numerous markets nationwide in the operation of premium natural and organic supermarkets. If the transaction continues unopposed, the FTC contends that Whole Foods is likely to raise prices and reduce quality and services unilaterally.
Continue reading " FTC Seeks to Block Whole Foods Market’s Acquisition of Wild Oats Markets " »
On June 4, the FTC entered into a settlement to resolve its concerns relating to Rite Aid Corporation’s proposed $3.5 billion acquisition of the Brooks and Eckerd pharmacies from Canada’s Jean Coutu Group (PJC), Inc. Rite Aid and Jean Coutu were required to sell 23 pharmacies to FTC-approved buyers in order to remedy the alleged anticompetitive impact of the proposed transaction. The stores will be sold to: 1) Kinney Drugs; 2) Medicine Shoppe International, Inc.; 3) Walgreen Co.; 4) Big Y; and 5) Weis Markets.
On June 1, the DOJ announced the launch of a report on unilateral conduct laws, the initiation of a project to develop recommendations on substantive merger analysis, and the sixth annual International Competition Network (“ICN”) conference in Moscow took significant steps toward strengthening antitrust convergence.
