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.

New York, New York (July 7, 2016) – After a four-year fight, Constantine Cannon won the reversal of a class action settlement that attempted to resolve merchant antitrust claims against Visa, MasterCard, and the nation’s largest banks.  The settlement tried to force the entire existing U.S. merchant community, and future merchants that accept Visa and MasterCard, to release all antitrust claims in exchange for limited money damages and virtually worthless injunctive relief.  In the words of the Second Circuit, “class counsel knew at the time the Settlement Agreement was entered into that this relief was virtually worthless to vast numbers of class members.”  As one member of the court put it, “This is not a settlement; it is a confiscation.”

Constantine Cannon represented dozens of the nation’s largest retailers along with a majority of the original class representatives who objected to the settlement when it was first announced in July 2012.  Our objector clients included a who’s who of the nation’s retailers:  Walmart, Amazon, Gap, Costco, Starbucks, Lowe’s, and 7-Eleven, among many others, along with prominent merchant trade associations representing thousands of individual members, including RILA, NACS, and the National Grocers Association.

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

Appeals Court Nixes $7.25B Credit Card Swipe Fee Settlement.  A $7.25 billion settlement between merchants and Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. over credit card transaction fees was rejected Thursday by a federal appeals court, a ruling praised by a retail trade association as a victory for consumers.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan said the 12 million merchants covered by the antitrust class action were inadequately represented by law firms that gave merchants who stood to gain little or nothing no opportunity to opt out of the deal.   Jeffrey Shinder, managing partner of Constantine Cannon, which is representing dozens of major retailers challenging the settlement, including The Gap Inc., Barnes & Noble Inc., Starbucks Corp., Nike Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and The Wendy’s Co., praised the ruling, calling it “a vindication of pretty much everything we argued.”

EU Regulators Readying Third Google Antitrust Charge: Sources.  Alphabet’s Google may face a third EU antitrust charge as soon as next month, this time focusing on its revenue mainstay AdWords ad placement service, according to sources.  The world’s most popular Internet search engine is already under fire from the European Commission for promoting its shopping service at the expense of rivals and for using its Android mobile operating system for smartphones to squeeze out competitors.  The Commission has asked Google rivals to share information related to search advertising with the tech giant, a step suggesting the EU competition enforcer could be poised to hit Google with a fresh charge, the sources said.

Slowdown in Merger Deals Attributed to Political Uncertainty.  Uncertainty is being blamed for a string of declines in acquisitions announced during the first half of the year in almost every sector, location and size compared with the same period in 2015.  About $1.6 trillion worth of deals were announced this year through Thursday, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.  That represented a 19 percent slump from the first half of the year in 2015 and a slight increase from the same period in 2014.  Mergers and acquisitions bankers and lawyers have attributed the slowdown to concerns about mergers being blocked by antitrust regulators after some prominent deals fell apart for that reason.

Supreme Court Agrees to Review ATM Fee Antitrust Lawsuit.  The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear appeals by Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc. and several U.S. banks seeking to throw out lawsuits claiming they conspired to inflate the prices of ATM access fees in violation of antitrust law.  The high court will hear the companies’ bid to overturn an August 2015 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that revived three related class action lawsuits.  The appeals court said a district court erred when it concluded that consumers had no standing to sue and had not adequately alleged antitrust violations.