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

E.U. Fines Qualcomm $1.2 Billion Over Apple Deal.  European antitrust officials hammered Qualcomm with a $1.2 billion fine on Wednesday, saying the American chip maker, whose technology underpins much of the world’s mobile phone industry, had abused its dominant market position to squeeze out competitors. The penalty of 997 million euros follows a two-year investigation and is the latest move by regional regulators against a United States tech giant. Officials in Brussels say that Qualcomm offered financial incentives to Apple so that it would buy equipment solely from the chip maker. Qualcomm immediately said it would appeal the ruling, which would probably extend the case, originally announced in the summer of 2015, for years to come.

Murdoch’s Bid for Full Control of Sky Is Dealt a Blow by U.K. Regulator.  Rupert Murdoch’s yearslong effort to secure an even larger presence in the international media market suffered a new setback on Tuesday, when a British regulator provisionally rejected 21st Century Fox’s bid to acquire full control of Sky, the British satellite broadcaster. Mr. Murdoch has made multiple attempts to acquire the part of Sky not already under his control, only to find himself thwarted by a phone-hacking scandal and the British authorities. The regulatory decision announced on Tuesday was the latest blow to 21st Century Fox’s bid to buy the 61 percent of Sky it does not now own.

BNP Paribas unit pleads guilty in U.S. to currency rigging, fined $90 mln.  A unit of BNP Paribas SA agreed to plead guilty and pay a $90 million criminal fine for rigging foreign currency prices, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday. BNP Paribas USA admitted to having conspired to suppress competition by fixing prices for Central and Eastern European, Middle Eastern and African currencies from September 2011 to July 2013, violating U.S. antitrust law. The Justice Department said the conspiracy involved price manipulation on an electronic trading platform through the creation of bogus trades, coordinated trading, and agreements on what prices to quote to specific customers, among other means.

Judge orders U.S. government to seek consent to give data to AT&T, Time Warner.  The judge hearing the Justice Department’s lawsuit to stop AT&T from buying Time Warner ordered the department to seek permission to give the two companies access to rivals’ pricing data. Judge Richard Leon, living up to a pledge made during a hearing, ordered the Justice Department, which has the data, to ask the companies that gave it to the government for consent to pass it on to AT&T and Time Warner’s legal team. The Justice Department sued in November to stop AT&T, the No. 2 U.S. wireless company, from buying Time Warner for $85 billion because of concerns that it could raise prices for rivals and pay-TV subscribers as well as hamper the development of online video. Trial is set for March 19.

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

FTC investigating Broadcom for antitrust practices.  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating whether chipmaker Broadcom Ltd. engaged in anticompetitive tactics in negotiations with customers, the company said on Wednesday.  The investigation comes as Broadcom pursues a hostile takeover of Qualcomm in a $103 billion deal.  Since the FTC would likely review any merger for anticompetitive practices, the current probe could make regulatory approval more challenging.  Broadcom was recently issued subpoenas that seek an extensive amount of information, according to the Wall Street Journal, which was the first to report the probe on Wednesday.

Lawsuit in U.S. Accuses Nine Banks of Rigging Canadian Rate Benchmark.  Nine large banks, including six from Canada, have been accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to rig a Canadian rate benchmark to improve profits from derivatives trading.  The complaint, filed by a Colorado pension fund in U.S. District Court in Manhattan late on Friday, accused Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and the other banks of suppressing the Canadian Dealer Offered Rate (CDOR) from Aug. 9, 2007, to June 30, 2014.  According to the Fire & Police Pension Association of Colorado, the banks hoped to reduce interest they would owe investors on CDOR-based derivatives transactions in the United States, including swaps and Canadian dollar futures contracts, and generate potentially billions of dollars of improper profit.

EU antitrust regulators clear Qualcomm purchase of NXP.  EU antitrust regulators have approved U.S. smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm’s planned $38 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors subject to a series of commitments Qualcomm has made.  Qualcomm said the European Union clearance, along with approval earlier on Thursday from the Korea Fair Trade Commission, meant it now had eight of nine approvals, with just China remaining.  It said it was optimistic that would come soon.  Qualcomm, which supplies chips to Android smartphone makers and Apple, is set to become the leading supplier to the fast-growing automotive chip market following the deal, the largest-ever in the semiconductor industry.

Judge overseeing AT&T, Time Warner merger trial hears document dispute.  AT&T, owner of DirecTV, is asking for documents from a long list of companies as part of preparation for a trial to determine if they will be allowed to buy movie and TV show maker Time Warner, their lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said in a pre-trial hearing on Friday.  The Justice Department sued in November to stop AT&T, the No. 2 U.S. wireless company, from buying Time Warner for $85 billion because of concerns that it could raise prices for rivals and pay-TV subscribers as well as hamper the development of online video.  Trial is set for March 19.  Daniel Petrocelli, who represents AT&T and Time Warner, said that his team had been unable to get data requested from third parties, who had said they no longer had some of it. He asked the government, which did have the data, to return it so it could be subpoenaed.

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

Live Nation Settles Suit With Ticketing Start-Up, Buying Its Assets.  Two years ago, Songkick, a ticketing start-up that operated out of a loft in Brooklyn, filed an antitrust suit against Live Nation Entertainment, the colossus of the concert business.  The David-and-Goliath suit included accusations of abuse of market power by Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary.  But on Friday, less than two weeks before the start of a trial, Live Nation announced that it had settled the suit for $110 million and an additional undisclosed sum to acquire some of Songkick’s remaining technology assets and patents.

Department of Justice Probes Admissions Ethics Code.  The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into whether the ethics code of the National Association for College Admission Counseling violates federal antitrust law.  The department has sent information requests to NACAC and to professionals from various schools and colleges who were involved in drafting the new version of the ethics code, which was adopted last year.  The letter from the department, a copy of which has been obtained by Inside Higher Ed, states that the investigation pertains to a possible agreement “to restrain trade among colleges and universities in the recruitment of students.”

Jaguar Land Rover Escapes Antitrust Suit Over Ban on Overseas Resale.  A federal judge has dismissed an antitrust suit challenging Jaguar Land Rover’s ban on overseas resale of vehicles it sells to U.S. customers.  The suit was brought on behalf of U.S. owners of Jaguars and Land Rovers, and asserts that they could resell their vehicles in China or Russia for three or four times their cost here if not for a no-export policy the company imposes on new car buyers.  The suit asserts that the vehicles’ manufacturer requires its U.S. dealers to enforce the policy, and dealers that fail to do so are given a reduced allocation of vehicles.  But the complaint fails because the plaintiff did not establish a concerted action by the defendants that produced anti-competitive effects within the relevant product and geographic markets, U.S. District Judge William Martini of the District of New Jersey ruled, dismissing the suit with prejudice.

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

Southwest Airlines Settles Suit but Denies Colluding to Keep Ticket Prices High.  A federal judge has approved a $15 million settlement between Southwest Airlines and members of a class-action lawsuit who allege that the company, along with three other airlines, conspired to limit the number of seats available to customers and keep ticket prices high.  In a statement, Southwest said the settlement “does not constitute any admission of wrongdoing” and denied having entered into any unlawful agreements with its competitors.  The move appeared to represent a break of sorts between Southwest and the other three defendants named in the lawsuit:  American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.  Those companies have also denied doing anything illegal, and they continue to fight the allegations.

EU Asks:  Does Control of ‘Big Data’ Kill Competition?  European Union antitrust regulators are taking a hard look at an increasingly important corporate currency: data.  The EU’s competition chief is focusing on how companies stockpile and use so-called big data, the enormous computer files of customer records, industry statistics and other information.  The attention diverges starkly from a hands-off approach in the U.S., where regulators emphasize how big data can generate innovation.

Lawsuit:  Duke, UNC Agreed to Not Hire Each Other’s Doctors.  The basketball rivalry between Duke University and the University of North Carolina battle is legendary, but a federal lawsuit says the two elite institutions have agreed not to compete in another prestigious area:  the market for highly skilled medical workers.  The antitrust complaint by a former Duke radiologist accuses the schools just 10 miles (16 kilometers) apart of secretly conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s professors.  If her lawyers succeed in persuading a judge to make it a class action, thousands of faculty, physicians, nurses and other professionals could be affected.

Argentina approves Telecom ‘quadruple play’ services.  Argentina’s communications regulator Enacom said on Friday it had signed off on new rules allowing companies to offer so-called quadruple play services that include landlines, mobile phones, pay television and the internet.  Approval had been expected in early 2018 after phone company Telecom Argentina SA and Cablevision SA, an internet, cable TV and data transmission company, reached a merger agreement in July.  Enacom also said on Friday it had authorized mobile phone providers Claro and Telefonica licenses to offer pay television and radio services in select cities in Argentina.

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

Ramen price-fixing class action headed for U.S. trial.  A federal judge in San Francisco has refused to dismiss antitrust class action litigation accusing two big South Korean ramen producers of conspiring to fix prices in the United States, clearing the way for a trial.  U.S. District Judge William Orrick on Thursday rejected efforts by market leader Nongshim Co. and Ottogi Corp. to dismiss claims brought by food retailers and distributors, and by consumers in 23 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.

Google Extends Commitments Stemming From U.S. Antitrust Case.  Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it will extend commitments made five years ago to U.S. antitrust officials related to how developers use its advertising platform and the scraping of third-party content in search results.  The internet search giant said in a blog post that it will continue the practices that were about to expire, saying they provide “additional flexibility” to developers and web sites.

Can Disney’s Bid for Fox Overcome Antitrust Concerns?  The Walt Disney Co. is acquiring most of the assets of 21st Century Fox for $52.4 billion in stock, or $66.1 billion after the assumption of debt, creating a content behemoth that will have the power to reshape the sports and entertainment landscapes.  Their combined heft will give them even more leverage over cable companies and internet service providers while strengthening their online video streaming services, according to experts at Wharton and elsewhere.