The Antitrust Week In Review

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

EU stops Halliburton, Baker Hughes deal probe again, wants more info.  Oilfield services provider Halliburton Co.’s plan to acquire smaller rival Baker Hughes is facing additional delay after European Union antitrust regulators halted their investigation into the $35 billion deal for the second time.  According to the European Commission, the companies have yet to provide an important piece of information.  “Once the missing information is supplied by the parties, the clock is re-started and the deadline for the Commission’s decision is then adjusted accordingly,” Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said in an email.

Judge Approves Sale of 2 Southern California Newspapers.  A federal bankruptcy judge has approved Digital First Media’s $52.3 million purchase of the Orange County Register and another Southern California newspaper after antitrust concerns scuttled plans for Tribune Publishing Co. to purchase the papers.  Freedom Communications decided to sell the Register and Press-Enterprise of Riverside to Digital First after another judge blocked a higher bid by the owner of the Los Angeles Times.  The transaction would give Denver-based Digital First, which publishes the Los Angeles Daily News, 11 daily newspapers and more than a dozen community weeklies in the greater Los Angeles area.

6th Circuit revives hospital antitrust action.  Four Ohio hospitals and a financial-management company participating in a joint operating agreement do not constitute a single entity immune to claims that they conspired to keep a fifth hospital out of their market, a divided federal appeals court has held.  The 2-1 decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals revived an antitrust lawsuit filed in 2012 by the Medical Center at Elizabeth Place against Premier Health Partners and its four member hospitals in the Dayton, Ohio area.

Judge dismisses ex-LA Clippers owner Sterling’s lawsuit vs NBA.  A federal judge has dismissed former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s lawsuit accusing the National Basketball Association of violating antitrust laws in forcing him to sell the franchise in 2014.  U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin in Los Angeles ruled that he was “skeptical that Sterling suffered any injury at all, let alone an antitrust injury,” given the record $2 billion price that former Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer paid for the Clippers.  Sterling had sued in May 2014, after the league banned him for life following racist remarks he had made in a conversation recorded secretly by his girlfriend, V. Stiviano.