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Acting on a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit, a federal judge has rejected the planned $6.3 billion merger of Office Depot and Staples. It’s yet another example of why our nation’s antiquated antitrust law should be either reformed or repealed entirely. The ink wasn’t even dry on the judge’s order when, as CNBC.com noted, “analysts called into question the office-supply chains’ ability to effectively compete in the market as stand-alone companies.” Specifically, Jefferies analyst Daniel Binder advised his investor clients that Office Depot and Staples “will continue to face secular declines and each company’s business is vulnerable to competition from online...

There are five major medical insurers in America and soon there may be only three. What does this health insurance consolidation mean for the future of healthcare? Clearly, the sacred and confidential nature of the relationship between doctor and patient is history. Big Money has moved in to stay. The medical insurance 500 pound gorilla is about to consolidate into an even more intrusive and dense trust which—as with the banks—will be too big to fail and far too big to control. Few know that during the debate over the Affordable (Unaffordable) Care Act, there were eight lobbyists for each...

For most people, pleading guilty to a felony means they will very likely land in prison, lose their job and forfeit their right to vote. But when five of the world’s biggest banks plead guilty to an array of antitrust and fraud charges as soon as next week, life will go on, probably without much of a hiccup. The Justice Department is preparing to announce that Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and the Royal Bank of Scotland will collectively pay several billion dollars and plead guilty to criminal antitrust violations for rigging the price of foreign currencies, according to people briefed...

European antitrust regulators on Wednesday charged the Russian energy giant Gazprom with abusing its dominance in natural gas markets, a move amounting to a direct challenge to the authorities in Moscow. The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said that unfair pricing might have resulted in higher gas prices in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, which have long been wholly or substantially dependent on Russian gas. In those countries, the commission said, Gazprom was suspected of charging wholesalers prices that were significantly higher compared with the company’s costs or to benchmark prices.

Europe’s antitrust regulator has decided to file formal charges against Google Inc. for violating the bloc’s antitrust laws, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday, stepping up a five-year investigation that is set to become the biggest competition battle in Brussels since the European Union’s pursuit of Microsoft Corp. a decade ago. EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager made the decision on Tuesday in consultation with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and will inform her fellow EU commissioners at a meeting on Wednesday, the person said

Google has a staggering 90% dominance of all search in the EU, making it much more influential than it is in the U.S., where it currently holds 75% dominance, says Business Insider). Experts told The Wall Street Journal that it is easier to bring an antitrust lawsuit to the EU commission than to a U.S. court: Unlike in the U.S., where antitrust investigators must prove their case to a judge, the EU Commission acts as prosecutor, judge, and jury in competition cases... If convicted, Google could be forced to pay as much as 10% of its annual revenue, which amounted...

The European Commission asks Apple and labels to explain their pacts for the relaunch of Beats Music to see if they're trying to crimp free offerings from streaming rivals like Spotify, a report says. Apple's bid to relaunch its Beats streaming music service is already facing scrutiny. The European Commission has sent questionnaires to several labels and digital music companies about Apple's plans for Beats Music, according to a report in the Financial Times (subscription required). The questionnaires are a first step and don't automatically presage a formal investigation, said the FT, adding that such information gathering is often sparked...

Search giant (GOOGLE) averages a White House meeting a week during Obama administration. As the federal government was wrapping up its antitrust investigation of Google Inc., company executives had a flurry of meetings with top officials at the White House and Federal Trade Commission, the agency running the probe. Google co-founder Larry Page met with FTC officials to discuss settlement talks, according to visitor logs and emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt met with Pete Rouse, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, in the White House. The documents don’t show exactly what was discussed...

A young computer whiz from New York City has launched a site to help people buy cheap plane tickets. But an airline company and its travel partner want to shut him down. United Airlines and Orbitz filed a civil lawsuit last month against 22-year-old Aktarer Zaman, who founded the website Skiplagged.com last year. The site helps travelers find cheap flights by using a strategy called “hidden city” ticketing. The idea is that you buy an airline ticket that has a layover at your actual destination. Say you want to fly from New York to San Francisco — you actually book...

European lawmakers on Thursday eased the way for cartel victims to claim compensation from companies under new rules that also shield price-fixing whistleblowers from being the main target of million-euro lawsuits. The green light from the European Parliament came nine years after the European Commission broached the idea, seeing it as an additional tool, on top of fines, to deter companies from breaking antitrust laws. According to the Commission, only one in four cartels and antitrust infringements faced damages claims in the last seven years. Its 2010 estimate put the cost of unrecovered damages of infringements at over €20 billion...

Comcast will announce a deal to acquire Time Warner Cable in an all-stock deal worth more than $45 billion that will unite the biggest and second largest cable television operators in the country, according to people briefed on the matter. . The surprise merger — expected to be announced on Thursday — is likely to bring to an end a protracted takeover battle that a smaller cable rival, Charter Communications, has been waging for Time Warner Cable, and will be the second major deal for Comcast in recent years to radically reshape the American media landscape.

The EU has started legal action against Russian energy giant Gazprom, the bloc’s competition chief said on Thursday (3 October). … The anti-Gazprom claims say it is abusing its dominant market position to demand extortionate prices for gas and preventing countries from diversifying their energy supply. Lithuania says it pays 35 percent more than Germany for gas under its contract with Gazprom. …

The European Commission launched a probe on Tuesday into whether inter-bank fees charged by MasterCard (MA) may be hurting competition in Europe and running afoul of antitrust rules. The investigation comes as part of a broader look at fees in the card industry, including a similar probe of card giant Visa (V). Noting that European consumers and businesses are making more than 40% of their non-cash payments each year by card, the EC said it has a “priority” to “prevent competition distortions in inter-bank arrangements on fees and other conditions.” The EC said it is concerned that some of MasterCard’s...

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that accused Union Pacific and BNSF Railways of price fixing. Oxbow Carbon & Minerals LLC said in its lawsuit that the two biggest railroads in the western U.S. worked to avoid direct competition with each other to keep rates high, and that Union Pacific has refused to ship coal from its Oxbow’s Elk Creek Mine in western Colorado to avoid competing with BNSF. The lawsuit brought by Oxbow and six of its companies also said the railroads’ fuel surcharges aren’t based on actual costs and simply raise shipping rates. But U.S. District Court...

US regulators are likely to conclude a lengthy antitrust probe of Google’s dominance of Internet searches with a voluntary settlement, news reports said Monday. The Wall Street Journal said Google was likely to agree to a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that calls for unspecified changes in how it handles search queries, but would stop short of signing a consent decree that could be enforced by a court. The Washington Post also reported that a settlement was likely this week, saying it would fall well short of what Google’s rivals had sought. …

The European Commission on Tuesday opened proceedings against Microsoft to investigate claims that the US firm had failed to meet its 2009 commitment to offer users a choice screen enabling them to easily select web browsers other than Microsoft's Internet Explorer. "On the basis of information it has received, the Commission believes that Microsoft may have failed to roll out the choice screen with Windows 7 Service Pack 1, which was released in February 2011," the EU's executive body said in a statement. "This is despite the fact that, in December 2011, Microsoft indicated in its annual compliance report to...

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 By AppleInsider Staff Published: 10:05 AM EST (07:05 AM PST) An antitrust suit accusing Apple and a number of book publishers of price fixing and collusion was filed by the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday. The complaint was filed in a New York district court against Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Penguin, according to Bloomberg. Indications first surfaced on Tuesday that the Department of Justice was readying an antitrust suit. The justice department is expected to settle with "several publishers" this week, as Reuters reported earlier that Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Penguin, Macmillan and HarperCollins...

The case centers on Apple's move to change the way that publishers charged for e-books as it prepared to introduce its first iPad in early 2010. Traditionally, publishers sold books to retailers for roughly half of the recommended cover price. Under that "wholesale model," booksellers were then free to offer those books to customers for less than the cover price if they wished. Most physical books are sold using this model. To build its early lead in e-books, Amazon Inc. sold many new best sellers at $9.99 to encourage consumers to buy its Kindle electronic readers. But publishers deeply disliked...

Now that Obama is continuing to MELTDOWN by giving public speeches to HIMSELF, ( my personal favorite so far, is his recent speech in front of the Congressional Black Caucus ), we here at FR need to turn a larger share of our attention to supporting competent candidates for the US Senate. Our main problem, of course, is the large number of incumbent Senators who are Republican In Name Only ( RINO for you lurkers ) . These RINO Senators are more that willing to do their typical "Bipartisan Cave-In" to "save" ANY Liberal/Socialist bill, but they just might be...

The Justice Department is blocking AT&T’s $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA, saying the acquisition of the No. 4 wireless carrier in the country by No. 2 AT&T would reduce competition and raise prices. The deal has faced tough opposition from consumer groups and No. 3 carrier Sprint since it was announced in March. AT&T could challenge the Justice Department’s action in court.