Bob Connolly   bob@reconnollylaw.com In the coming months there will be many proposals advanced to amend the Sherman Act.  My offering is to amend Section 1 with this text: “Price fixing, bid rigging and market/customer allocation are per se illegal.”  You may think the Sherman Act already says this.  It does not.  The text simply states “restraints of trade” are illegal.  The Supreme Court has held that these three words somehow created two distinct substantive…

Bob Connolly     bob@reconnollylaw.com In late 2019 the European Union issued a Directive requiring comprehensive and coherent protection of whistleblowers.  The twenty-seven Member States have until December 2021 to incorporate the Directive into their national legislation.  The member states are required to provide protection from retaliation for whistleblowers but not a system of monetary reward.  Conversely, in the United States, Senator Amy Klobuchar recently proposed sweeping antirust reform legislation including a proposal to “establish…

           I attended the 2021 ABA Antitrust Law Section Spring Meeting that was held over March 22-26, 2021.  Once again, and hopefully the last time, the meeting was held virtually but it was as good as a virtual meeting could be in my humble opinion.  The programs and structure were pretty much the same as the in-person Spring Meeting with a wide range of topics.  While I tend to favor the…

Bob Connolly   bob@reconnollylaw.com The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division today issued the 2021 edition of its annual Spring Newsletter. The newsletter highlights the division’s recent activities and successes on civil and criminal enforcement, diversity initiatives, international cooperation, and competition advocacy.  The newsletter highlights the division’s accomplishments and features profiles of division staff. It can be found at https://www.justice.gov/atr/division-operations/division-update-spring-2021. With respect to Criminal Enforcement, the newsletter contains the following bullets: Generic Drugs Investigation Targets Anticompetitive …

Bob Connolly    bob@reconnollylaw.com The last several Antitrust Division, DOJ press releases for criminal case filings may appear to be out of place if you are not familiar with the history of Division’s occasional foray into bringing non-Sherman Act cases.  None of the last four criminal cases brought by the Division contain a charge of violating the Sherman Act: South Korean National Pleads Guilty to Scheme to Defraud U.S. Department of Defense   DOJ Press…

Bob Connolly   bob@reconnollylaw.com [I am aware that I post often about the desirability of criminal antitrust whistleblower incentives. The blog post below relates to an article I had published recently in Law 360.  Not everyone subscribes to Law 360, which I recommend, so I have excerpted a small portion in this blog post.] There are a number of reasons to expect  increased criminal antitrust enforcement in the new administration.  One reason may be the…

Bob Connolly   bob@reconnollylaw.com    LinkedIn The ABA Antitrust Law Spring meeting will, unfortunately, be virtual again this year.  This is disappointing to me as I have gone every year for, well, a very long time. I enjoy seeing old friends, making new ones, and getting away for a few days to DC. But as I was looking through the meeting program, a silver lining jumped out to me–especially for students.  Because the meeting…