The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed an antitrust complaint this week against Endo Pharmaceuticals and several generic companies, alleging that these companies entered into anticompetitive “reverse payment” settlements of patent infringement litigation under the Hatch-Waxman Act. In its 2013 FTC v. Actavis opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court held that certain settlements involving “reverse payments” may raise antitrust issues, because they represent a payment to a competitor to stay out of the market, rather than reflecting traditional and proper settlement considerations. While the agency’s focus on reverse payments is nothing new, the FTC reports that this is its first complaint targeting a no-authorized-generic (“no-AG”) commitment as a form of reverse payment.
