The Antitrust Week In Review

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

Consumers lose U.S. appeal over credit card arbitration clauses.  The credit card industry won a big legal victory as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit  rejected claims by a group of consumers that big issuers colluded to require that disputes be settled in arbitration rather than through class action lawsuits.  The appellate court upheld the district court’s ruling that American Express, Citigroup and Discover Financial Services did not violate antitrust law in forcing cardholders to submit to arbitration.  Consumers argued that card-issuing banks and their lawyers broke the law when they held 28 meetings from May 1999 to October 2003 to discuss how to impose mandatory arbitration clauses in cardholder agreements.

Google to contest Russia’s antitrust ruling on Android.  Google has announced that it will contest in court a ruling by Russia’s antitrust agency that it broke competition law by abusing its dominant position with its Android mobile platform.  Russia’s competition watchdog ruled in September that Google had broken the law by requiring pre-installation of certain applications on mobile devices running on Android.

States Urged to Review Health Insurer Mergers.  Consumer advocates and antitrust experts are urging state regulators to closely examine the proposed mergers of major health insurance companies, saying they threaten to leave consumers with fewer choices and higher prices.  Some consumer groups are concerned about merger proposals involving the nation’s largest health insurers that would result in three behemoths: Anthem with Cigna, Aetna with Humana and the unpartnered UnitedHealth Group.