Law, Strategy, and Risk in Commercial Disputes
The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued new merger guidelines today.
If we can take the things that antitrust enforcers have said about the guidelines and enforcement generally in the last year or so as any guide, the update will make passing pre-merger muster harder to achieve.…
The Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition enforces U.S. pro-competition laws in tandem — and at times in competition with — the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. Like its DOJ cousin, the Bureau seeks to curb anticompetitive conduct, such as price-fixing and rivalry-reducing mergers. And, more so than in the recent past, it has taken action to…
Blawgletter got back this morning (around 3:00 a.m.) from our first-ever trip to Boise. We saw a Great Many lawyers.
We and they had come to watch, and some of us to present, argument about what the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation should do with big cases.
In re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the…
One of Blawgletter's favorites, Infamy or Praise, goes into Some Detail about recent hits the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has taken at the hands of the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Copyright Office. Round Tuit riffs on lots of other cool stuff, too — liberal bias in our law schools, nuttiness over mentoring, and the art…
[See bottom of post for update on the Fifth Circuit's new opinion in the case.]
The software you use at work came from God knows where. Perhaps the Internet. But your copy features something the author didn't intend. Unlike the version the author sells, this one has somehow disabled the security doodad that controls access to…
The Supreme Court of California ruled last week that the Golden State's antitrust statute, the Cartwright Act, allows an award of overcharge damages to people who don't buy directly from a price-fixer. Clayworth v. Pfizer, Inc., No. S166435 (Cal. July 12, 2010).
The case involved pharmacies that alleged price-fixing by drug manufacturers. The…
DeBeers, the diamond behemoth, limited supply of and fixed prices on sparklies for years and years and in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. But it sold to only a small group of outfits, none of which dared sue the font of their mercantile wealth.
That didn't stop indirect purchasers from bringing cases…
The Federal Circuit looked at a verdict for $6.5 million this week and held that the jury meant to award more.
The case involved three patents relating to "transmission of data in telecommunications networks." Telcordia Technologies, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc., No. 09-1175, slip op. at 3 (Fed. Cir. July 7, 2010). One…
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down four decisions today. As the hour has grown late, Blawgletter will give just a thumbnail for each:
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Here you go — the list. Plus the update.
Blawgletter got it right a couple days ago.
See y'all in the Gem State — which we've never had the honor to visit ere now — a month hence.