Author: Jarod Bona In 2007, the Supreme Court issued a bombshell of a case called Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, which caused both antitrust lawyers and civil procedure law professors to rethink how they go about their work. For those of you not obsessed with law or antitrust, Twombly changed the…
What is great about practicing antitrust law is that you take deep dives into the intricacies of different markets from the shelf space in drug stores for condoms—an actual case from several years ago—to insurance brokerage pricing to processed eggs and everything in between. There are, however, certain industries that…
The US Supreme Court just issued its decision in an antitrust case called Ellen Gelboim v. Bank of America Corporation. This case arises out of major multi-district litigation (an MDL) centered on allegations that major banks conspired to manipulate the London InterBank Offered Rate (which you probably know as LIBOR)…
I’ve often written about real estate on this blog. There are two reasons for this. The first and most important reason is because my wife and I invest in real estate and thus talk about real estate, so it is on my mind. In fact, I have my California real-estate license.…
The trade association necessitates a delicate balancing act between anticompetitive conduct condemned by the antitrust laws and pro-competitive information-sharing and best practices that ultimately help consumers. Trade associations should have antitrust policies and should consistently consult with an antitrust attorney. Antitrust law reserves its greatest scorn to the horizontal agreements—the…
Sometimes competition is a real hassle. If your company has a loyal customer or longtime employee, you feel betrayed when a competitor swoops in to try to “steal them.” If you are the Miami Heat, you probably don’t like that the Cleveland Cavaliers are trying to hire your best player,…
That’s right, the antitrust laws care so much about competition that they even prohibit agreements among competitors to not steal. In a society that morally condemns stealing, this is counter-intuitive (and a good reason to learn a little bit about antitrust). You might wonder now whether I will engage in…
I recently reported on my client’s antitrust case against the Virginia Board of Medicine. I also mentioned that I argued at the motion-to-dismiss hearing on March 28. I am excited to announce that we received the Court’s decision today rejecting the Board’s Motion to Dismiss. If you are interested in…
Last week was a big antitrust week for the new law firm of Bona Law PC. First, it was the ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting, where antitrust lawyers from all over the world descend upon Washington, DC to obsess over antitrust and competition for several days. Second, I was writing an…
When you think about a government antitrust investigation, you probably picture monopoly accusations against large companies like Microsoft in the 90’s and early 2000’s or AT&T in the 70’s and 80’s. Or perhaps you imagine a global price-fixing cartel like that depicted in the movie The Informant. In any event,…