Facebook has a unique positioning in the digital market, which is based entirely on the collecting of user data. Currently, users have only one option: accepting the terms and conditions imposed by Facebook or being excluded from the social network entirely. After almost three years of investigation, the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) found that the social network’s practices violate competition law and data protection principles. Specifically, the FCO held that Facebook abused its dominant…

Antitrust enforcement may be becoming an increasingly politicized issue, however, most policies are fairly consistent from administration to administration and, consequently, from one Attorney General to the next. Replacing Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, William P. Barr was recently appointed by the Senate to serve as Attorney General. Having previously served as Attorney General under President George H.W. Bush, and given that during his tenure, the Department of Justice (DOJ) implemented several important antitrust policy initiatives,…

On February 15, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the annual threshold adjustments for premerger filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (15 U.S.C. § 18a) (HSR). The new thresholds have increased the dollar amount required to trigger HSR notification for both the size-of-transaction test and the size-of-person test. Members of our Antitrust & Competition Team describe the implications in our recent alert.…

By way of an EU regulation adopted by the Council and European Parliament, the European Commission, European Parliament, and Council of the European Union reached an agreement on February 14, 2019 to implement new rules designed to ensure a fair, transparent and predictable business environment to both end consumers and entrepreneurs using third party online platforms for their business. An example of this includes hotels that offer rooms through booking platforms or app developers who…

Recently, the DOJ has shined a spotlight on the potential antitrust risks associated with employers’ use of “no-poach” agreements, in which companies agree not to hire or solicit each other’s employees. Interestingly, in February of this year, the DOJ filed Statements of Interest in several civil antitrust cases brought against franchisors, taking the position that the no-poach agreements at issue in those cases were not per se unlawful and should be analyzed under the more…

This year marks four years since significant statutory reforms regenerated the UK’s collective actions arena. Following a rocky start to this new regime, it appears that 2019 may finally bring some clarity to potential claimants navigating the first hurdle of competition class actions: the Collective Proceedings Order application. In this client alert, our London Competition and Commercial Disputes teams discuss four new important cases, which are the first of their kind, and offer insight…

On 11 April 2019, the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) released the final report on its sector inquiry into comparison websites. The FCO’s report identifies areas of concern in various industries, including energy, telecommunications, insurance, finance and travel, which are particularly relevant for consumers. The findings indicate that in some cases consumers are being misled, that transparency obligations are not fully complied with, and that advertisements are not always identified as such by the relevant…