The Antitrust Week In Review

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

U.S. Bucked Rest of World on Antitrust Enforcement in 2016.  It was a record year for antitrust cartel enforcement in 2016, with $6.7 billion in total fines levied — but not in the U.S., which had its slowest year in a decade, according to a new report.  Even as the European Union levied a record $4.1 billion in antitrust fines, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division’s total fines nosedived to $387 million in 2016 — down from a record $2.85 billion in 2015.

U.S. Loses Bid to Overturn AmEx Antitrust Decision.  A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the U.S. government’s request that it reconsider its decision allowing American Express to stop merchants from encouraging customers to use rival cards that charge lower fees.  Without comment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit let stand its Sept. 26 reversal of a lower court ruling that had struck down AmEx’s “anti-steering” rules.  That reversal by a three-judge panel allowed New York-based AmEx to block merchants that accept its cards from steering customers to rivals Visa and MasterCard, even if such steering would have saved them money.

Former Barclays Trader Pleads Guilty in Currency Manipulation Conspiracy.  A former Barclays trader pleaded guilty on Wednesday to federal charges arising from a global investigation into the manipulation of foreign-exchange prices at major banks, according to the U.S. Justice Department.  Jason Katz, a former Barclays trader who later worked at BNP Paribas, pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Manhattan to participating in a price-fixing conspiracy, becoming the first person to admit criminal wrongdoing in the inquiry.  Mr. Katz’s plea came after Barclays and three other banks pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to manipulate currency prices.

Euronext Offers to Buy Unit of London Stock Exchange for $536 Million.  Euronext said on Tuesday that it had offered to buy the French arm of the London Stock Exchange Group’s majority-owned clearing business, as the British company looks to win regulatory approval for a merger with Deutsche Börse.  The London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse agreed in March to a merger, which would create Europe’s largest stock market operator by far, combining exchanges in Britain, Germany and Italy.  In July, shareholders from the two exchanges approved the deal, the companies’ third attempt to come together since 2000.