Earlier this month, President Biden announced the formation of a “Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing.” This strike force will be an interagency group co-chaired by the FTC and DOJ. President Biden stated the group will focus on industries including “prescription drugs, health care, food and grocery, housing, [and] financial services.” While the exact makeup of the strike force is not clear, it has been reported that FTC Chair Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, will co-chair it. 

The Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division released a joint statement reiterating document preservation obligations for companies and individuals that are the subject of government investigations and litigations, emphasizing messaging platforms, such as Slack and Google Chats, that automatically delete communications. Both agencies announced updated language in their standard preservation letters, specifications for “second requests” used in pre-merger review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, voluntary access letters, and grand jury subpoenas, to address these instant messaging platforms. The agencies emphasized that companies’ obligation to preserve information on such platforms is nothing new, explaining their clarification is to prevent companies from feigning ignorance if communications are not preserved after preservation obligations are triggered.

Pricing algorithms are nothing new. They are, generally speaking, computer programs intended to help sellers optimize prices in real time, or close to it. These programs can use data on demand, costs, or even competitors’ prices to “learn” to set the prices of products. What is new is the proliferation of these programs across industries and the emergence of artificial intelligence-driven pricing algorithms. 

The Federal Trade Commission has announced revisions to HSR Act and Clayton Act Section 8 thresholds, which are indexed annually in alignment with prior year economic activity. The article identifies the adjustments that are likely to be the most relevant to our clients and reiterates several important practice tips.

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On December 18, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released the 2023 Merger Guidelines. Following a 60-day public comment period that solicited over 30,000 comments from a variety of stakeholders, the finalized guidelines take a somewhat softer approach than the draft guidelines

With great promise comes great scrutiny. As artificial intelligence (“AI”) has become part of industries’ and individuals’ daily repertoire, it has also come under focus by antitrust regulators. The DOJ, in its so-called “Project Gretzky,” is gearing up with data scientists and others to be a tech-savvy version

If a request for legal advice goes unanswered, is it really a request for legal advice?  According to the U.S. Department of Justice and several state attorneys general (“DOJ Plaintiffs”) in an antitrust action against Google, United States, et. al. v. Google, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the answer to this question should be “no,” at least where the unanswered request for legal advice is part of an internal company practice intended to conceal sensitive, non-privileged documents from discovery.

If you ever noticed a coupon dispenser or colorful cardboard display while walking down the aisle of your local supermarket, there is a good chance it was put there by News Corp.’s News America Marketing (NAM) – in-store marketing’s dominant player.  News Corp.’s dominance, however, was allegedly the result of anticompetitive conduct, according to its former competitor Valassis Communications, Inc.  In a 2017 lawsuit, Valassis alleged that News Corp.’s practice of “staggering” the expiration date of exclusive contracts with retailers violated, among other things, sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act and section 3 of the Clayton Act, and resulted in preventing Valassis from establishing itself as a viable competitor. After four years of litigation, the case finally went to trial last month, but the parties settled after the jury indicated it would be unable to reach a verdict.  Nevertheless, Valassis’ allegations raise an interesting question: what supporting facts and allegations might suggest staggered exclusive contracts constitute anticompetitive conduct?