Standard Oil Octopus: Past as Prologue

Stephen D. Susman, the founder of my firm and a titan in the antitrust bar, pioneered representing private antitrust plaintiffs on a contingent-fee basis.

Nobody knew better than Steve how to manage risk in antitrust cases — how to choose them, staff them, litigate them,

We round up the most significant appellate decisions relevant to commercial litigation each week.

To celebrate the arrival of summer, I am trying an experiment.

In this post–which covers almost all of June–I’ve sorted commercial rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and a selection from the highest state courts according to subject matter.

The resulting headings group decisions by broadly descriptive categories (e.g., Antitrust and Intellectual Property) for quicker reference. As usual, you may access the decisions by clicking on the case summary itself.

Please let me know you find these signposts worthwhile.
Continue Reading Commercial Roundup

HackedUnfair methods and data breaches

The Third Circuit has ruled that exposing credit card information to hackers can count as an “unfair method[] of competition” under the Federal Trade Commission Act. Federal Trade Comm’n v. Wyndham Worldwide Corp., No. 14-3514 (3d Cir. Aug. 24, 2015).

The decision opens the way for the FTC to seek injunctive and disgorgement remedies from companies whose cyber security measures fall short. It also has the collateral effect of bolstering consumer lawsuits for damages under the “Little FTC Acts” of California and 27 other states.

Any business that uses an online computer to store customer information should take notice.
Continue Reading What the FTC Win on Data Breaches Means

The owner of a patent on a brand-name drug sues a competitor for infringing the patent. The parties settle. But the infringer doesn't pay. The patent-owner does. Why? In return for the competitor's agreement not to compete during the rest of the patent's term.

Four of our 13 courts of appeals held that such a "reverse

K-Dur
K-Dur treats low potassium. We think.

Since 2003, the Federal Trade Commission has fought a losing battle to halt bargains in which a brand-name drug-maker pays a generic competitor to put off entering the market. Pacts like that, the agency urged, result in "reverse payments", which compensate a patent infringer not to do stuff that might infringe the patent. Such arrangements violate antitrust law

Church & Dwight bills itself as "one of the fastest growing Consumer Packaged Goods companies" and as "a leader in the Household Consumer Products and Personal Care industry, with such brands as ARM & HAMMER, Trojan, First Response, Nair, Spinbrush, Oxi Clean, Orajel and more."

Note the "Trojan" bit.

In June 2009, the Federal Trade Commission

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.