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Articles Posted in Antitrust Litigation

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Bid-Rigging is a Per Se Violation of the Antitrust Laws

Author: Jarod Bona You can buy and sell products or services in many different ways in a particular market. For example, if you want to purchase some whey protein powder, you can walk into a store, go to the protein or smoothie-ingredient section, examine the prices of the different brands,…

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Do the Antitrust Laws Prohibit Tying Products or Services Together for Sale?

Author: Jarod Bona Yes, sometimes “tying” violates the antitrust laws. Whether you arrive at the tying-arrangement issue from the perspective of the person tying, the person buying the tied products, or the person competing with the person tying, you should know when the antitrust laws forbid the practice. Even kids may…

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Hub-and-Spoke Antitrust Conspiracies and the Classic Case of Toys “R” Us v. FTC

Author: Jarod Bona Like life, sometimes antitrust conspiracies are complicated. Not everything always fits into a neat little package. An articulate soundbite or an attractive infograph isn’t necessarily enough to explain the reality of what is going on. The paradigm example of an antitrust conspiracy is the smoke-filled room of…

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State Action Immunity and Active Supervision: The Ninth Circuit Rejects the Board’s Claim for Immunity and SmileDirectClub Wins Again

Author: Luis Blanquez Just weeks before our ABA antitrust panel on State Action Immunity takes place in Washington DC, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed SmileDirectClub to proceed against the members of the California Dental Board for antitrust violations, rejecting the board’s immunity claim on active supervision grounds.…

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Appealing a Class Action Certification Order under Rule 23(f)

Author: Aaron Gott The most complex, highest stakes litigation in the United States is class action antitrust litigation. And many antitrust cases are litigated as class actions because they involve claims by many consumers of the defendants’ products or services. If you are a defendant in a federal class action…

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Observations on the Court’s Rejection of Facebook’s Motion to Dismiss the FTC’s Amended Antitrust Complaint

Author: Jarod Bona The FTC filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook (now Meta Platforms Inc.). Judge James E. Boasberg dismissed it. The FTC then filed an amended complaint. And the same judge just denied Facebook’s motion to dismiss that complaint. The FTC alleges that Facebook has a longstanding monopoly in…

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Choice of Law, Antitrust Class Actions, and the Value of State Inaction

Author: Jarod Bona When you defend antitrust class actions in federal court like we do, you often see a long list of state antitrust claims brought by what are called indirect purchasers. That is because the federal antitrust laws have this strange quirk that usually forbids federal antitrust claims for…

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Classic Antitrust Cases: National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U.S. 679 (1978)

Author: Jarod Bona As an antitrust attorney, over time you see the same major cases cited again and again. It is only natural that you develop favorites. Here at The Antitrust Attorney Blog, we, from time-to-time, highlight some of the “Classic Antitrust Cases” that we love, that we hate, or…

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Facebook Wins First Antitrust Battle: The FTC and State Enforcers Fail to Establish (For Now) Facebook’s Monopoly on Social Media Networks (with update)

Authors:  Steven J. Cernak and Luis Blanquez In late 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the attorneys-general (AGs) from 48 states filed nearly identical antitrust lawsuits against Facebook for stifling competition by acquiring potential competitors, mainly Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, and for enforcing policies that blocked…

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Antitrust Law Meets Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies in Court: Lessons Learned on Market Definition and Antitrust Injury from the Bitman Case

  Author: Luis Blanquez Following DOJ’s remarks on blockchain, it was only a matter of time until antitrust law and the unstoppable blockchain world would meet in court. And it finally happened some months ago in the complex Bitmain case. In this case a cryptocurrency developer and mining company sued…