The Antitrust Week In Review

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

Aetna Meets with Justice Department Over Merger with Humana.  Aetna executives met with top antitrust officials of the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday to convince the government that asset sales it proposed would address potential competitive problems that could threaten its deal to buy rival Humana, according to a source.  Aetna’s plan to buy Humana would combine two of the largest providers of Medicare Advantage plans for elderly people, and investors are concerned that antitrust regulators could oppose the deal.  The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division is assessing both Aetna’s $34 billion merger as well as Anthem’s $44 billion deal to buy rival Cigna.

EU Regulators Accept Antitrust Concessions from Maersk, MSC, Others.  European Union antitrust regulators accepted on Thursday an offer from Maersk , the world’s largest container shipping liner, and 13 competitors to change their pricing practices in order to stave off possible fines.  The case is being closely watched by other sectors such as supermarkets and chemicals companies, concerned that similar pricing methods could lead to charges of price fixing by competition enforcers.  The European Commission opened a case against the container shipping liners in late 2013, following dawn raids two years earlier.

EU Set to Clear Italian Mobile Telecoms Merger-Sources.  CK Hutchison Holdings and Vimpelcom are set to win EU antitrust approval for their deal to merge their rival Italian mobile network operators after agreeing to concessions to help a new competitor break into the market, according to sources.  Approval of the 21.8-billion-euro deal to merge Hutchison’s 3 Italia with Vimpelcom’s Wind Telecommunicazioni would be welcome news for the industry after the European Commission blocked Hutchison’s similar deal in the UK to merge its Three UK subsidiary with Telefonica’s O2 UK.  European regulators fear that when such deals reduce the number of mobile network operators in a country to just three, competition would be insufficient to keep a lid on prices.