Antitrust Laws

The NFL players, like football fans everywhere, will be focused on the playoffs this month and the fierce competition for a spot in the Super Bowl. Their lawyers, however, will be keeping an eye on the Supreme Court. On Jan. 13, the pro football owners will be asking the high court to rule for the first time that the NFL is shielded from antitrust laws because, while its teams compete on the playing field, they function in business as a "single entity." If the justices were to agree, the ramifications could be significant, not just for football but all pro sports leagues, say experts in sports law. Freed from the antitrust laws, owners could get together to restrict salaries for players and coaches and raise prices for everything from tickets to stocking caps.

WASHINGTON - A government attorney urged the Supreme Court to allow authorities to crack down on cash deals among prescription drug makers that delay the introduction of generic drugs and keep consumer prices high. The so-called pay-for-delay deals, which allow brand-name drug companies to keep cheaper generic drugs off the market for a time, violate antitrust laws, the Federal Trade Commission argued Monday. "It's unlawful to buy off the competition," said Malcolm Stewart, the deputy solicitor general who represented the FTC and the Justice Department.

Federal regulators said Wednesday they had agreed to close a loophole in the antitrust laws that has enabled partnerships to evade an advance-notice requirement for takeovers of big corporations. Under the new Federal Trade Commission rules, which will take effect in about five weeks, partnerships will be required to obtain advance clearance from federal antitrust agencies before they can complete a major merger or acquisition deal.

Even the U.S. government can't rein in Google Inc.'s dominance of online search. Federal regulators ended a 19-month antitrust investigation into the Mountain View, Calif., search engine giant without imposing any major sanctions. The probe focused on complaints that Google skews its search results to favor its own products and services, which unfairly hurt competitors. It was a bitter decision for Microsoft Inc. and a cadre of other small and large rivals that feel Google remains unchecked in its dominance of the Internet search business.

The power of antitrust law reached its peak on a day in 1911 when the U.S. Supreme Court found that Standard Oil Co. and American Tobacco Co., two giant corporations of their era, had illegally attempted to monopolize their industries. Ever since, it has been a spasmodic slide into obscurity, if not irrelevance. The Reagan Administration's antitrust proposals confirm the eclipse: They are neither as vital as the Administration contends nor as calamitous as critics allege.

A 7-0 decision by a U.S. appeals court in the Microsoft case is far from the final word for the litigation itself. But it should put to rest once and for all Microsoft's arguments--and those of some of its free-market defenders--that the antitrust laws are obsolete and have no place in the "new economy."

A re U.S. antitrust laws obsolete? There's a move in Congress to repeal parts of federal antitrust law that prohibit large companies from producing goods jointly. The idea is that by acting together--particularly in risky ventures such as computer chips--U.S. companies would better compete globally.

Top Bush Administration officials plan to propose a significant relaxation of antitrust law that would make it easier for rival U.S. companies to manufacture products jointly, according to Administration sources. The proposal is based on the theory--disputed by some experts--that by operating factories jointly, American companies would perform better against foreign competition, especially in capital-intensive, high-technology industries such as robotics, semiconductors and high-definition TV.

The Justice Department today denied it has deliberately failed to enforce antitrust laws on mergers, but critics accused the Administration of being so lax that states have been forced to try to preserve business competition. Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who heads the Senate antitrust subcommittee, opened a hearing by accusing the Administration of fostering the most permissive merger climate in 70 years in order to advance the philosophy of free enterprise.

President Reagan, arguing that American business needs greater flexibility to respond to global competition, has decided to ask Congress to overhaul the nation's antitrust laws to ease restrictions on mergers, Administration sources said Tuesday. According to a memorandum by Treasury Secretary James A.

The first sign of inclement weather in the so-called nuclear winter arrived Tuesday when Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant and a handful of other players sued the NBA with antitrust lawsuits at federal courts in Oakland and Minneapolis. Perennial All-Stars Anthony and Durant said the NBA violated antitrust laws and conspired to "boycott players" by attempting to force them to take massive reductions in compensation. The 30 NBA teams were named as defendants in the class-action suit filed in Oakland on behalf of the NBA's 439 players.

The legal war between Apple Inc. and Samsung Corp. continues to escalate, and has arrived in the halls of the European Union. The European Commission, Europe's top competition enforcer, has contacted Apple and Samsung, according to a statement posted by patent maven Florian Mueller on his FOSS Patents blog. "The commission has indeed sent requests for information to Apple and Samsung concerning the enforcement of standards-essential patents in the mobile telephony sector," the statement says.

Reporting from New Orleans Pro football has become a game of toxic tennis ? NFL management versus players ? with each side accusing the other of lying, hiding its true intentions, and greedily making a grab for more of the league's $9 billion in annual revenue. As the whole mess careens toward federal court, where there's a hearing scheduled for April 6 in the court of U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson in Minnesota to determine whether the league is breaking antitrust laws by locking out the players, team owners will convene in New Orleans on Monday and Tuesday for their annual meetings.

The NFL players, like football fans everywhere, will be focused on the playoffs this month and the fierce competition for a spot in the Super Bowl. Their lawyers, however, will be keeping an eye on the Supreme Court. On Jan. 13, the pro football owners will be asking the high court to rule for the first time that the NFL is shielded from antitrust laws because, while its teams compete on the playing field, they function in business as a "single entity." If the justices were to agree, the ramifications could be significant, not just for football but all pro sports leagues, say experts in sports law. Freed from the antitrust laws, owners could get together to restrict salaries for players and coaches and raise prices for everything from tickets to stocking caps.

Google Inc.'s settlement with authors and publishers over the digital scanning of books got a preliminary approval from a federal judge last week, but the controversy may be far from over. In fact, legal experts and industry observers who have been closely following the case believe the fight over Google's ambitious book-scanning efforts is just starting all over again. At issue is the ability of the Mountain View, Calif., search company to make available on the Internet digital copies of millions of out-of-print books and "orphan" books, works whose copyright holders cannot be found.

A federal judge on Tuesday declined to force Gannett Co. to keep open the Tucson Citizen, meaning the edition of the afternoon newspaper published Saturday was its last. U.S. District Judge Raner Collins denied a request for a temporary restraining order filed by Arizona Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard, who contended that closing the 138-year-old paper violated antitrust laws.

The Bush Administration today announced it will toughen enforcement of federal antitrust laws, pushing for stiffer penalties for violators and giving more scrutiny to business mergers. Administration officials also said the government will focus its antitrust effort on certain industries, including health care and airlines, and evaluate its own policies to see whether they hurt competition. James Rill, who heads the antitrust division in the U.S.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Visa U.S.A. violated antitrust laws when it opposed an American Express Co. move to lower credit card interest rates, it was announced Tuesday. The probe follows complaints to the Administration from several sources, including Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a main congressional critic of credit card companies, and Rep. Frank Annunzio (D-Ill.), chairman of a House subcommittee on consumer affairs. In a letter to Schumer, Assistant Atty. Gen.

Whole Foods Market Inc. announced a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission on Friday that ended the government's efforts to unwind the grocer's 2007 acquisition of Wild Oats Markets Inc. The FTC said the combination of the two natural and organic food retailers threatened competition and violated antitrust regulations.

McKesson Corp. won dismissal of a proposed class-action lawsuit over claims it inflated wholesale prices of prescription medicines in violation of antitrust laws. The New England Carpenters Health Benefits Fund failed to demonstrate the anticompetitive effects resulting from McKesson's alleged conduct, U.S. District Judge Patti Saris said in Boston.