The Antitrust Week In Review

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

Court Strikes Down Payments to College Athletes. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the N.C.A.A. may restrict colleges from compensating athletes beyond the cost of attendance, handing the college sports establishment a victory in its fight against athletes’ rights. The appeals court held that limiting student athletes’ compensation to the cost of attendance in exchange for use of their names, images and likenesses was sufficient under antitrust law.

EU antitrust chief says Apple, Google cases show no U.S. bias. Europe’s antitrust chief is dismissing accusations of anti-U.S. bias over her decision to go after Google for abusing its Internet search dominance and Apple over an Irish tax deal. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is defending herself against criticisms in U.S. media for several cases opened over the past year against U.S. giants such as Google, Apple, Amazon and Starbucks. According to the antitrust enforcer, the nationality of companies played no role in her assessment.

Swiss Regulator Is Examining Precious-Metals Market. Switzerland’s Competition Commission is investigating seven financial institutions, including the Swiss banks UBS and Julius Baer, over potential collusion to manipulate the precious-metals market. The antitrust regulator announced that it was examining whether there was collusion among banks around the bid-ask spread in the trading of gold, silver, platinum and palladium. The financial institutions are Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Julius Baer, Morgan Stanley and UBS, and the trading house Mitsui & Company Precious Metals, a unit of Mitsui & Company of Japan.