The Antitrust Week In Review

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

RadioShack Antitrust Lawsuit: Sony, Samsung, Toshiba And Others Accused Of Illegal Price-Fixing Conspiracy.  The liquidation trustee for the former retail giant RadioShack is accusing five of the world’s largest consumer electronics companies of illegally conspiring to create an intricate price-fixing scheme that artificially inflated the cost of optical disk drives, a common component present in many devices, computers and appliances.  In a federal antitrust lawsuit filed Wednesday in Northern California, the trustee accused Sony Corporation, Toshiba Corporation, Samsung, Philips Electronics and Light-On IT Corp. of participating in a “six-year price-fixing conspiracy,” which allegedly took place from January 2004 until at least January 2010.

Dow and DuPont will merge in a $130-billion megadeal, then split 3 ways.  Industrial giants Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont Co. said Friday that they had agreed to merge and form a chemicals and agricultural powerhouse valued at $130 billion.  After the all-stock merger, the new company — to be called DowDuPont —plans to split again into three publicly traded companies, with one focused on agriculture, another on materials and plastics and a third on specialty products.  Given the proposed new company’s size, the deal is expected to receive antitrust scrutiny.