The Antitrust Week In Review

Here are some of the developments in antitrust news this past week that we found interesting and are following.

Google rebuts Europe on antitrust charges.  Google is denying claims from the European Union’s top antitrust official that it favored some of its own search results over those of rivals, saying there was significant competition in the region’s online search market and that the company’s services increased choice for consumers.  Google’s response to the charges, which was submitted to the European Commission Thursday afternoon, is the latest chapter in a long investigation into the Silicon Valley technology giant, which would face fines worth billions of dollars if it is found to have violated the European Union’s antitrust rules.

EU antitrust regulators investigate precious metals trading.  European Union antitrust authorities are investigating possible anti-competitive practices in precious metals trading as they join other regulators in a crackdown on possible rigging of the markets.  The European Commission’s action follows a record 1.7 billion euro fine against six financial institutions in 2013 for manipulating Libor and Euribor interest rate benchmarks.

Dismissal of drug-pricing antitrust lawsuit affirmed.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of a more than 20-year-old lawsuit filed by 28 retail pharmacies accusing Johnson & Johnson of suppressing competition by giving large pharmacy benefit managers discounts on drugs.  The court said that extensive discovery had shown that the pharmacies had not lost a significant amount of customers, and thus could not show any antitrust injury.