Department of Justice

Antitrust News: The Oscars’ Proposed Ban on Netflix Movies Raises Antitrust Concerns

April 6, 2019 | Bona Law PC

My morning routine usually begins with reading the news to keep up on current events. As an antitrust lawyer, I often find myself thinking about how stories that were deemed newsworthy for other reasons fail to recognize their often most troubling aspects: the antitrust concerns.

Last week, for example, the news was abuzz with Uber and Lyft drivers going “on strike” to protest their compensation from the companies. The drivers “banded together” in an effort to pressure the companies. Most might see this as a sort of unionization of the gig economy. But I saw it as an antitrust problem: ride referral drivers are independent contractors, so they are not, under well-established federal law, entitled to the union labor exemption from the antitrust laws. They are horizontal competitors who are agreeing to restrain trade. That sort of conduct is called a group boycott, and under these circumstances, it might be per se illegal under Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

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Antitrust News: The Department of Justice Supports a Market-Participant Exception to State-Action Immunity in No-Poaching Agreement Case Against Duke University

March 8, 2019 | Bona Law PC

Author: Jarod Bona

It is illegal under the antitrust laws for competitors to agree not to steal each others’ employees. For more about that, you can read our article about how the antitrust laws encourage stealing. Yes, you read that correctly.

But this article isn’t about stealing or even agreeing not to steal employees. Instead, it is about one of our favorite topics: Suing the government under the antitrust laws and the increasingly narrow state-action immunity from antitrust liability.

The FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division can affect antitrust policy beyond just the cases that involve those agencies. They will often file amicus briefs, or in this case, a Statement of Interest of the United States of America. You can read here about how these type of filings have resulted in the FTC seeming like a libertarian government agency.

In Danielle Seaman v. Duke University, a class action alleging that Duke and the University of North Carolina had a no-poaching agreement in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Department of Justice filed a Statement of Interest on March 7, 2019.

One of Duke’s arguments in defense of the lawsuit is that it is exempt from antitrust liability because it is a state entity. This is called state-action immunity. We write about this doctrine constantly at The Antitrust Attorney Blog.

Anyway, Duke argued that it is Ipso facto exempt from the antitrust laws because it is a “sovereign representative of the state” that is automatically exempt under the Parker doctrine (which is essentially the state-action immunity doctrine). Notably, this argument is flawed already, as the doctrine really only supports automatic exemption for the state acting directly as sovereign, which is typically limited to the state acting in its legislative capacity, or its Supreme Court acting as a legislator (which sometimes happens).

But the Department of Justice, in addition, argued that state-action immunity—or at least Ipso facto immunity—does not apply because Duke University is acting as a market participant, not as a regulator. The DOJ supported this argument with some familiar case law, including the landmark NC Dental case.

It seems that the DOJ market-participant argument is limited here to the point that Duke cannot be automatically exempt from antitrust liability because it is a market participant rather than a regulator, for purposes of the anticompetitive conduct.

But the same reasoning that DOJ makes and the same cases that DOJ cites support a broader market-participant exception to state-action immunity overall. This is an issue that the US Supreme Court expressly left open in its Phoebe Putney decision.

It is a short step from the argument that DOJ makes here to a straightforward market-participant exception to state-action immunity.

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Procedural Fairness in Antitrust and Competition Enforcement: DOJ and the ICN

June 5, 2018 | Bona Law PC

Author: Luis Blanquez

Makan Delrahim, Antitrust Chief for the United States Department of Justice, made news on June 1, 2018, when he announced that the United States will finalize and join the Multilateral Framework on Procedures in Competition Law Investigation and Enforcement.

Delrahim explained why due process is a priority for antitrust and competition enforcement: “With more than 140 competition agencies, and increased international commerce, including digital commerce, it is more and more critical that we share a common set of principles that affords due process to individuals and businesses in investigation and enforcement.” (p.2).

We applaud this effort and agree that companies—including those that do business on several continents and governed by multiple enforcers—should receive fair treatment worldwide by competition authorities.

In his speech, Delrahim mentioned the International Competition Network (ICN), among other groups, as likely substantive sources for the multilateral framework.

It just so happens that the ICN recently addressed this issue at its 17^th annual conference, hosted by the Competition Commission of India on March 21-23, 2018. Indeed, the ICN adopted new guiding principles for procedural fairness in competition agency enforcement.

For those that are not familiar with it, the ICN is a network of 104 competition agencies, enriched by the participation of non-governmental advisors (representatives from business, consumer groups, academics, and the legal and economic professions), with the common aim of addressing practical antitrust enforcement and policy issues. The ICN promotes more efficient and effective antitrust enforcement worldwide to the benefit of consumers and businesses.

Because antitrust and competition agencies are now prioritizing due process, we will do a deep dive into the specific due process issues that the ICN described in its report.

One of the ICN’s several working groups is the Agency Effectiveness Working Group (AEWG). The AEWG aims to identify key elements of well-functioning competition agencies, including good practices for strategy, planning, operations, enforcement and procedures. To that end, the AEWG recently developed an ICN Guidance on Investigative Process paper, which offers helpful tips on investigative transparency and due process. This paper follows previous reports on Investigative Tools, Competition Agency Transparency Practices, and Competition Agency Confidentiality Practices.

Following these guidance reports, the AEWG has now produced new Guiding Principles for Procedural Fairness, together with some recommendations for internal agency practices and implementation tips for good agency enforcement process.

You can access the ICN report here.

Following the two-day conference in India, the AEWG adopted the following Guiding Principles for procedural fairness in competition agency enforcement:

Impartial Enforcement

Competition agencies should conduct enforcement matters in a consistent, impartial manner, free of political interference. Agency officials should not have relational or financial conflicts in the matters on which they work. Agencies should not discriminate on the basis of nationality in their enforcement.

The AEWG highlights that agency officials should not have relational or financial conflicts of interest relevant to the investigations and proceedings they participate in or oversee. To ensure the impartiality of investigations and decision making, agencies should have ethics rules to prevent potential conflicts. And they should consider a systematic process to check for potential conflicts for all personnel working on a specific investigation.

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The Antitrust Laws Do Not Allow Real Estate Agents to Jointly Fix or Set Prices or Commissions

June 19, 2017 | Bona Law PC

If you have sold or purchased a home recently, you might be under the impression that real estate commissions—the price to engage a real estate broker—are fixed or otherwise set by law in different geographic markets. They aren’t—to do so amounts to price-fixing, which is a per se violation of the antitrust laws.

Like any other competitor—professional or not—real estate brokers and agents must compete for customer business on price, quality, and everything else. If competing professionals were to join together to fix commissions at a set price, they would violate the antitrust laws. And since it would be a per se violation, there are potential criminal penalties.

In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, is engaged in prosecuting some other real-estate participants for per se antitrust violations—bid rigging: Several Northern California real-estate investors have pled guilty for bid rigging public real estate foreclosure auctions. Similar bid rigging of foreclosure auctions apparently occurred in Georgia, as well. We wrote about these bid rigging investigations long ago when DOJ’s antitrust activity was in its early stages.

But let’s return to real estate brokers and commissions: It is true that in most geographic regions, you see commissions at around the same level, no matter who you hire as a real estate agent. That will sometimes happen in a market; there is a rate that is around the market rate and most will price around that rate. We wrote a prior article about this situation, where real estate commissions ended up at the same level, but not due to any agreement. This was not an antitrust violation.

For some reason, however, there is an impression with real estate commissions that there is a “standard” or “legal” rate that real estate agents must price. If you are a consumer in this industry, it is important that you know that this is absolutely incorrect. If your real estate broker tells you otherwise, have them read one of our most popular articles: Five Antitrust Concerns for Real Estate Professionals.

Then, go ahead and negotiate. That is your right. You don’t have a right to win the negotiation, but real estate agents don’t have a right to agree among each other on prices either.

If you are a competitor for real estate services, it is particularly important that you understand that you can’t fix prices with other agents. If you do, you might find yourself on the wrong side of an antitrust lawsuit—possibly even brought by Bona Law—as we receive a lot of calls and emails about these issues. Or, worse, you could receive a call from a Department of Justice lawyer that opened an investigation into you or your company.

My interest in this issue goes beyond my role running a boutique antitrust law firm: I am also a long time real estate investor and I have a California real estate license. To capitalize on that background, we recently started a new blog directed at real estate investors, called Titles & Deeds. If you want to learn more, you can read about our real estate blog here.

This, of course, leads us to Kansas. I bet you didn’t see that coming. Let me explain.

Are the Kansas Real Estate Commission and its Members About to Violate the Antitrust Laws?

On June 16, 2017, Andrew Finch, Acting Assistant Attorney General for DOJ, wrote a letter to the Kansas Real Estate Commission expressing concern about a regulation the Commission is considering that would make it easier to fix prices by forbidding real estate brokers from competing on price by offering gift cards or similar items.

Apparently, according to the DOJ law, Kansas state law forbids real estate brokers from offering rebates, but doesn’t define the term “rebates.” The Kansas state ban, of course, is highly anticompetitive. It directly restricts price competition and harms consumers in Kansas. The Kansas government has unfortunately chosen to protect profits in the real estate profession over the well-being of its citizens.

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The Antitrust Pleading Standard Is Shifting Back Toward the Plaintiff

June 10, 2017 | Bona Law PC

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 antitrust pleading standards in federal court from one of extreme permissibility to the current “plausibility” standard.

Courts quickly began applying Twombly beyond antitrust cases, and it now is THE case for motions to dismiss that argue that plaintiffs have not plead enough to move to the next stage of litigation.

When the Supreme Court decided Twombly, it created a surge of excitement, and federal courts began dismissing cases left and right because plaintiffs had not alleged sufficient facts to show a “plausible” claim to relief, under antitrust or other laws.

Since then, I don’t think I have seen any antitrust complaint that wasn’t followed by a motion to dismiss, usually citing Twombly. Notably, courts coupled this elevated standard with refusals to start discovery until after plaintiffs leaped the motion-to-dismiss hurdle.

I believe, however, that the antitrust-pleading-standard pendulum is beginning to shift back toward the plaintiff.

Update: On November 10, 2014, the United States Supreme Court in Johnson v. City of Shelby issued a new plaintiff-friendly pleading decision.

Update 2: You can read my new article on antitrust pleading standards here: “What is the Biggest Mistake that District Court Judges Make in Antitrust Cases?”

Update 3: Read this article from Luis Blanquez: What is the Twombly Motion to Dismiss Standard for Antitrust Cases? Comparing the Ninth and Second Circuits.

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Hospitals, Antitrust, the Department of Justice, and Agreements to Not Compete on Marketing

July 7, 2015 | Bona Law PC

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 repeat themselves in the antitrust world, which isn’t a surprise because some industries are more susceptible to antitrust issues than others. For example, the airline and pharmaceutical industries consistently face antitrust scrutiny because of the nature of their markets and the regulations surrounding them.

But the industry I’d like to discuss here is the health-care or medical industry, and more specifically, hospitals. I’ve found myself with many antitrust and non-antitrust cases involving health-care of one sort or another over the last couple years, so this area has become an interest of mine.

Lately, I have also spent more time than I will publicly admit consuming materials (mostly books, blogs, and podcasts) on health, nutrition, and fitness, which (combined with my health-care cases) has my family often reminding me that I am not a doctor after some well-meaning but often unwelcome advice.

If you follow antitrust, you will notice that there are a lot of cases about hospitals. Why is that? This might seem surprising at first glance because many hospitals are non-profits or government-owned and you probably don’t picture a hospital in your mind when you think of the term “monopolizing.”

(If you can make it through the explanation below, you can read about a recent Department of Justice antitrust action against some Michigan hospitals that apparently agreed not to compete with each other in particular ways).

First, non-profit status is not a defense to the antitrust laws. Whether you have stockholders or owners that keep residual profits or not, you have to play by the antitrust rules. Non-profit entities (and their officers) still seek power, influence and prestige. And, increasingly, state and local government entities are subject to the antitrust laws. I’ve written a lot about that on The Antitrust Attorney Blog; you can access those articles in the State-Action Immunity category.

In fact, after the Supreme Court’s decision in North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. FTC, it seems like many litigants want to go after state boards of various sorts. Anyway, I’ve received many calls about this and there are a few active cases, including one in Texas that I’ve written about.

Second, the health-care industry encompasses a series of narrow product, service, and geographic markets. That is because, except in limited circumstances, most people don’t travel far for medical care. They want to go somewhere near their work or home. So geographic markets are usually regional to a metro area (with some exceptions).

Within each geographic region, there are usually a limited number of hospitals or other medical facilities for particular specialties. Thus, each geographic market, that is each region, has what may be considered an oligopoly, or a handful of competitors that all know and depend upon each other. Whereas the airline industry is effectively a worldwide oligopoly, the markets for hospitals and other medical facilities are often oligopolies within metro areas. From that perspective, it isn’t a surprise that we see many hospital antitrust cases because there are so many different metro areas with oligopolies.

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Can You Make Money From an Antitrust Hedge Fund?

October 9, 2014 | Bona Law PC

So here’s an idea. Let me know what you think: A hedge fund or other investment vehicle centered on antitrust analysis.

I’ll explain.

As you might know, I am an antitrust attorney. And I write a blog on antitrust and competition law. So, as you may expect, I follow antitrust developments somewhat obsessively at times. As a result, I have a good sense of the practical antitrust implications of certain cases, investigations, or prospective mergers.

I don’t have a crystal ball or anything. Nor do I have any inside information. And since human beings—judges or agency officials—make the relevant decisions, nobody can actually predict what will happen.

But by now, I can review a complaint or a motion to dismiss or description of facts and have a good sense of the strength and risk of the antitrust issues. I think I also have a decent idea how the major antitrust agencies—the FTC and Department of Justice—focus their priorities and like to resolve investigations, cases, and mergers. Like I said, I can’t predict anything with certainty, but there is a high learning curve for antitrust (probably more than most specialties) and I’ve spent a lot of time and effort climbing that curve.

Enough about me—for now anyway.

Let’s talk about antitrust and company stock performance. The obvious scenario is a merger. Two companies, perhaps competitors, announce a merger or acquisition. It isn’t a dead-on-antitrust-arrival merger between the first and second leading companies in a product and geographic market that is easily defined. Instead, it is the sort of merger where the markets are somewhat complicated, perhaps in flux, and it isn’t entirely clear whether an antitrust agency will challenge it or a court will stop it.

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The Antitrust Laws Encourage Stealing

April 22, 2014 | Bona Law PC

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 some philosophy gymnastics to convince you that stealing is okay. No, but I will provide a concrete example, then offer some advice. Not as fun, but perhaps more useful.

So California is abuzz with recently released documents in an antitrust class action by employees against giant Silicon Valley employers like Google, Inc., Apple Inc., Intel Corp and Adobe Systems Inc. The case is scheduled for trial soon and news reports suggest a settlement is likely.

Update: As expected, the parties have reportedly agreed to settle the antitrust case.

What happened? The class-action employees accused major Silicon Valley employers of agreeing not to steal each other’s employees. If true, that’s kind of a big deal under the antitrust laws.

It doesn’t sound so bad, right? How can anyone get any work done if everyone is trying to steal everyone’s employees? And it just seems impolite. Competitors are so tough on each other—can’t we have just a little bit of dignity and not try to hire away your competitor’s employees? The sort of war that can ensue among competing employers for a scarce resource—quality technology employees—can make a truce very tempting.

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The Problem with Conduct Remedies for the Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger

April 16, 2014 | Bona Law PC

Antitrust attorneys do everything that a lawyer can do: They litigate in both courts and agencies; they counsel clients; and they participate in mergers & acquisitions. If you are a young lawyer or law student that can’t decide what type of legal activity you like best, try antitrust and competition law—you can do it all.

In the mergers & acquisitions category, antitrust’s most recent obsession is the deal between Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Cable., Inc.

Competition Policy International (CPI) was kind enough to ask me to write a few words expressing my thoughts, and you can read them here. You can view the other Comcast-TWC articles from the CPI Antitrust Chronicle here.

I won’t go into a lot of detail because you can read the actual article (which is less than five pages), but I thought I’d provide a little introduction into my thinking.

Usually in these circumstances, you will see commentary on one side stating that, of course, the merger should be approved, maybe even “as is.” On the other side, you will read analyses that the world will fall apart if the merger is not blocked forever.

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Does My Company’s Loyalty-Discount Program Violate Antitrust and Competition Laws?

January 22, 2014 | Bona Law PC

This article is cross-posted in both English and French at Thibault Schrepel’s outstanding competition blog Le Concurrentialiste. Like most antitrust issues today, questions about loyalty discounts are relevant across the globe as competition regimes and courts grapple with the best way to address them.

Companies like to reward their best customers with discounts. It happens everywhere from the local sandwich shop to markets for medical devices, pharmaceutical products, airline tickets, computers, consumer products, and many other products and services.

Customers like loyalty-discount programs (or rebates) because they get more for less. And the reason so many companies offer them is because they are successful.

Everyone wins, right?

Usually. But the program could very well violate antitrust and competition laws in the United States, the European Commission, or other jurisdictions.

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