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Colin Kass is a partner in the Litigation Department and co-chair of the Antitrust Group, and a member of the Firm’s cross-disciplinary, cross-jurisdictional Coronavirus Response Team. An experienced antitrust and commercial litigation lawyer, Colin has litigated cases before federal and state courts throughout the United States and before administrative agencies. His practice involves a wide range of industries and spans the full-range of antitrust and unfair competition-related litigation, including class actions, competitor suits, dealer/distributor termination suits, price discrimination cases, criminal price-fixing investigations, and merger injunctions.

Colin also has extensive experience dealing with the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice in obtaining clearance for competitively-sensitive transactions and handling anticompetitive practices investigations. His practice also includes counseling clients on their sales, distribution, and marketing practices, strategic ventures, and general antitrust compliance.

On the heels of the historic proposed changes to the Hart-Scott-Rodino (“HSR”) merger review process, the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission released the 2023 Draft Merger Guidelines for public comment. The single set of guidelines will replace the former horizontal and vertical guidelines, becoming

On June 29, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would dramatically expand HSR reporting requirements. The historic changes fundamentally alter the HSR reporting landscape, shifting to more of a “white paper” approach, similar to that of ex-U.S. jurisdictions like the EU. These modifications bring

The FTC and SEC have their own administrative dispute resolution regime, presided over by their own administrative judges (“ALJs”). Until now, those regimes were virtually immune from attack on a constitutional basis, because any such challenge had to wait until appeal to the federal courts (which only happened after a full trial and appeal to the agency itself). No longer. On April 14, 2023, the Supreme Court held that the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Securities Exchange Act do not create an alternative review scheme in which constitutional challenges must first go through the agencies, and only later receive federal court review in a court of appeals. 

In the latest of a string of losses for antitrust enforcers, the Northern District of California resoundingly denied the FTC’s bid to enjoin the Microsoft-Activision merger, allowing the deal to proceed a week in advance of its upcoming merger termination date. In a case that tested the bounds of antitrust law in vertical integration deals, Presiding Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley found “the record evidence points to more consumer access,” rather than showing signs of reduced competition. Federal Trade Commission v. Microsoft Corporation, et al. 

On June 15, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition issued a statement on the relationship between voluntary interviews with the agency and contractual provisions that require or limit the disclosure of information. The Bureau explains that voluntary interviews are a key aspect of investigations because they “are essential to help [them] understand real-world dynamics and effects,” and “reduce unnecessary burdens on marketplace stakeholders and Bureau staff.” In the statement, the Bureau asserts that certain contractual restrictions impede investigations, and should be considered void.

In an unsigned per curiam opinion yesterday in Gonzalez v. Google, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s judgment— which had held that plaintiffs’ complaint was barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – and remanded it. But the Court’s opinion entirely skirted a highly-anticipated issue: whether Section 230 does, in fact, shelter as much activity as courts have held to date.

 As this year’s roundtable of enforcers demonstrated, big business is probably antitrust enforcers’ greatest fear. Spring in Washington means Cherry blossoms and antitrust. And last week, 3,700 antitrust lawyers and government officials from around the globe descended on Washington to visit the Cherry blossoms and discuss how they need more government intervention to make the economy work for everybody and need to bring ever more “plausible” cases in order to nudge and push the courts along.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument last week in cases that will have extensive implications for online platforms, and, more broadly, for internet speech across the board. Gonzalez v. Google, in particular, may result in a first-of-its-kind clarification of the scope of 47 U.S.C. § 230.