Last month, two members of Congress introduced the Monopolization Deterrence Act, which would allow the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to seek civil penalties for monopolization offenses under U.S. antitrust law. After almost 120 years, does the Sherman Antitrust Act need statutory tweaking? Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal seem to think so. Last month, they introduced the Monopolization Deterrence Act, which would allow the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to…

An article written by Partners Carl Hittinger and Danyll Foix and Counsel William DeVinney was published Sept. 20, 2019, by Global Competition Review. The article, “United States: Private Antitrust Litigation,” reviews private antitrust litigation developments in the five years since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission, which limited application of state action immunity. Read the article.…

We invite you to join us for one, two or all three of our upcoming high-level webinars offering vital insights into antitrust issues and white-collar investigations. These CLE webinars will be led by our knowledgeable and experienced attorneys, many of whom are former prosecutors and investigators who worked for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). They will discuss the new FTC, the revamped Trump DOJ and State Attorneys General Offices,…

Pork is the other white meat, beef is what’s for dinner, and chicken is now under investigation by the Department of Justice for possible antitrust violations. Looks like the DOJ is back in the criminal cartel investigation business. In June, the DOJ intervened in a class action antitrust lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, asking the court to stay discovery for six months while the Antitrust Division pursued…

Partner Carl Hittinger and Associate Jeanne-Michele Mariani authored an article published May 8, 2019, by The Legal Intelligencer. The article, “Antitrust Division’s Renewed Focus on Bid Rigging Promises to be Perilous,” focuses on the Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s campaign to investigate and prosecute criminal cartel behavior relating in particular to bid rigging involving government contracts overseas and in the United States. The division has revealed that there are presently 91 grand juries examining such…

Partner Carl Hittinger and Associate Tyson Herrold authored an article published on April 12, 2019, by Temple University’s business law publication, The Temple 10-Q. The article, “Judge Dolores K. Sloviter’s Antitrust Legacy,” discusses the significant antitrust contributions of former Chief Judge of the Third Circuit Sloviter, from her days as an antitrust lawyer to her rulings in the Third Circuit, including her landmark en banc decision in LePage’s Inc. v. 3M. Read the article.…

Partner Carl Hittinger, the Antitrust and Competition team leader, and Associate Jeanne-Michele Mariani authored an article published in the March 29, 2019, issue of The Legal Intelligencer. The article, “The NCAA, Which Is Tied to Education, May Be a Necessary Monopoly,” discusses a recent successful challenge made to the NCAA’s governing policies on antitrust grounds. That ruling, now on appeal, upheld the plaintiffs’ argument that the NCAA has a monopoly on the college athletic market…