Free Republic

President Obama’s campaign to cut health costs by $2 trillion over the next decade, announced with fanfare two weeks ago, may have hit another snag: the nation’s antitrust laws. Antitrust lawyers say doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and drug makers will be running huge legal risks if they get together and agree on a strategy to hold down prices and reduce the growth of health spending. Robert F. Leibenluft, a former official at the Federal Trade Commission, said, “Any agreement among competitors with regard to prices or price increases — even if they set a maximum — would raise legal concerns.”...

Silicon Valley companies are bracing for a tough new phase of antitrust scrutiny, responding to signs of heavier enforcement by the Obama administration and continued pressure from abroad. A stricter stance against companies that dominate their sectors is likely to test government-relations strategies that technology giants adopted during the Bush administration. Google Inc., one of the most prominent companies under the watch of antitrust regulators, says its lobbyists and executives since March have met with about 40 groups, including lawmakers, regulators and advertising agencies, to argue that its business practices don't reduce competition. A Google spokesman said the effort is...

For decades, the nation’s biggest antitrust cases have centered on technology companies. And they have all been efforts by the government to deal with powerful companies with far-reaching influence, like AT&T, the telephone monopoly; I.B.M., the mainframe computer giant; and Microsoft, the powerhouse of personal computer software. Last week, the Obama administration declared a sharp break with the Bush years, vowing to toughen antitrust enforcement, especially for dominant companies. The approach is closer to that of the European Union, where regulators last week fined Intel $1.45 billion for abusing its power in the chip market. In this new climate, the...

The world is returning to the 1970s on most economic policies, so why not antitrust too? Judging by events this week, antitrust enforcement in the U.S. and Europe is in for a major comeback, whether or not consumers benefit. Yesterday in Brussels, the European Commission imposed a record antitrust fine of $1.45 billion on Intel for the heinous crime of discounting computer chips in its fierce and long-running competition with AMD. Meanwhile on Monday, President Obama's new antitrust chief, Christine Varney, issued a radical revision of the Department of Justice's own antitrust enforcement standards. Ms. Varney's ambition seems to be...

Most likely, we grant you, it was coincidence. But we couldn’t help notice the timing: Two days after the DOJ’s new antitrust head, Christine Varney, publicly repudiates her predecessors by pledging to ramp up enforcement on so-called “single-firm” monopolistic behavior, the European Union takes a sledgehammer to Intel Corp., fining it $1.45 billion for alleged monopolistic activity. The fine is the largest ever assessed for monopoly abuse. [snip] The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said Intel broke EU rules by using the threat of withdrawing rebates it offered to large computer manufacturers, its customers, to pressure to them to...

The verdict is in and it's huge. As expected, the EU is fining Intel a record €1.06 billion or $1.45 billion (Billion!) dollars due to violations of antitrust rules in Europe. The record fine surpasses that of the €497 million fine originally levied against Microsoft. The EU ruled that Intel illegally used hidden rebates to squeeze rivals out of the marketplace for CPUs. In a statement issued by European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, the EC said,

The Obama administration plans tougher antitrust enforcement that could affect pending antimonopoly court cases as well as merger plans involving sectors from banks and dairy farms to railroads and technology. The Justice Department on Monday signaled a sharp turn from the Bush administration's more forgiving approach, arguing the economic crisis called for more antitrust enforcement. Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney formally withdrew Bush-era guidance that has helped defendants in antimonopoly suits. She also suggested the Justice Department would broaden its scrutiny of mergers to include deals in which companies acquire suppliers as well as competitors. A tougher approach by the...

Obama Going After Big Companies That Improperly Dominate Markets Justice Department Plans New Antitrust Effort Monday, May 11, 2009 By Devlin Barrett, Associated Press Washington (AP) - SNIPPET: "Varney laid out the new policy in a speech to the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank."

President Obama’s top antitrust official this week plans to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share. The new enforcement policy would reverse the Bush administration’s approach, which strongly favored defendants against antitrust claims. It would restore a policy that led to the landmark antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft and Intel in the 1990s. The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Christine A. Varney, is to announce the policy reversal in a speech she will give on Monday before the Center for American Progress,...

The Wal-Mart I visited had Louisiana Sweet Potatoes on sale for 15 cents per pound. It is a reminder of the days when Senator Jay Rockefeller's grandpappy drove competitors from the oil market with one penny a barrel of oil in East Texas. I am referring to the infamous anti-trust case against Standard Oil, and how the company was broken up by the Governement into Standard of California, Standard of Indiana, etc. Louisiana law does prevent the dumping of milk -- one cannot sale milk below the cost of the milk. Apparently, Wal-Mart must feel there are too many sweet...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, worried about the fate of The Chronicle and other financially struggling newspapers, urged the Justice Department Monday to consider giving Bay Area papers more leeway to merge or consolidate business operations to stay afloat. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, released by Pelosi's office late Monday, the San Francisco Democrat asked the department to weigh the public benefit of saving The Chronicle and other papers from closure against the agency's antitrust mission to guard against anti-competitive behavior. "We must ensure that our policies enable our news organizations to survive and to engage in the...

US mainframe maker T3 Technologies has filed a lawsuit against IBM with the European Union's antitrust authority for alleged illegal bundling of mainframe software and hardware. The company is accusing IBM of violating antitrust law by refusing to sell its z/OS operating system to clients who want to run the software on systems manufactured by T3. It also accuses IBM of harming competition by withholding patent licenses for its mainframe operating system and certain intellectual property. The company has asked the EC to investigate IBM's market price for its mainframe systems. It said that based on data from San Francisco-based...

New York - White House hopeful Senator John McCain expressed concern on Thursday over DHL's proposal to hire United Parcel Service Inc to fly its packages nationwide, as it violates laws intended to encourage market competition.

Apple lawsuit not just about copyright or EULA issues, says Psystar attorneyOne of the attorneys hired by Psystar Corp. to defend it in a copyright- and trademark-infringement lawsuit brought by Apple Inc. hinted that the clone maker will bring up antitrust issues if the case goes to trial. Colby Springer, one of the three lawyers from the Palo Alto, Calif., firm of Carr & Ferrell LLP who will represent Psystar, wouldn't go into details about legal strategies but spoke in general terms about the case during an interview on Thursday. "This case has been mischaracterized," said Springer. "There are a...

UPDATE 2-EU raids Cargill, Bunge in food-price probe Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:58pm BST (Adds comments from Cargill, Bunge) BRUSSELS, July 10 (Reuters) - The European Commission raided agribusiness giants Cargill Inc [CARG.UL] and Bunge Ltd (BG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Thursday in a sweep of traders and distributors of cereals and other agricultural products for human consumption and animal feed in two EU countries. The raids come at a time when grain prices have soared to record highs amid strong demand, production problems and the use of grain to produce biofuels that have lifted food prices. "The Commission has...

Microsoft Not Under Investigation In China--Yet Shu-Ching Jean Chen, 06.20.08, 2:26 AM ET hong kong - China’s intellectual property bureau issued a formal denial Friday of press reports that asserted it was conducting an anti-monopoly probe of Microsoft. But it is likely only a temporary reprieve for the global software giant. A new anti-monopoly law will take effect Aug. 1 that has a loosely defined and seemingly low threshold for the government to initiate an official investigation: upon receipt of a complaint from an institution or a lone individual.

Korea Fines Intel $25 Million for Antitrust Violations Steven Schwankert and Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service Wed Jun 4, 11:10 PM ET The Korea Fair Trade Commission has fined Intel a reported 26 billion won (US$25.42 million) for abusing its dominant position in the microprocessor market, by offering rebates to South Korean computer makers in a way that unfairly harmed its rival Advanced Micro Devices. Intel said it was unhappy with the ruling and indicated that it will appeal it to the high court in Seoul. Bruce Sewell, Intel general counsel, said Intel believes the Fair Trade Commission did not...

Visa is scheduled to have its IPO later this week. The IPO could potentially be the largest in history. This market seems like terrible timing for an IPO, although for liquidity-strapped banks, the IPO could be a much-needed source of cash. The Visa IPO, along with the 2006 MasterCard IPO and the end to MasterCard and Visa's dual-exclusivity rules, which prohibited banks that issued MC/Visa cards from issuing Amex or Discover cards, is setting the stage for a major reconfiguration of the payments world in the next decade. These changes could have far-reaching effects for consumers, merchants, and banks because...

Antitrust: European regulators have slapped Microsoft with the biggest fine in history. If any group other than a government entity forced the company to hand over money, its members would be guilty of robbery. After previously fining Microsoft the equivalent of $1.2 billion, the European Commission last week dinged the software giant for an additional $1.4 billion. Snip... Proving that compliance isn't the regulatocracy's real goal, the commission levied the fine just days after Microsoft reportedly surrendered to the shakedown and promised it would do more cooperating and less competing with rivals. Regulators and busybodies on both sides of the...

Microsoft Corp. last week pledged a new era of cooperation with rival software developers -- and with one person who doesn't write code at all, European antitrust chief Neelie Kroes. Mrs. Kroes is spurning the olive branch. Minutes after Microsoft began a widely trumpeted news conference Thursday saying it would give competitors better access to its secret operating-system code, Mrs. Kroes's office responded that it had heard such talk before. In a news release, the regulator toted up "at least four similar statements" Microsoft had made in the past. The European Union vowed to press ahead with two investigations into...