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

Supreme Court Sides With American Express on Merchant Fees.  American Express did not violate the antitrust laws by insisting in its contracts with merchants that they do nothing to encourage patrons to use other cards, the Supreme Court ruled last week. The decision has implications not only for what one brief called “an astronomical number of retail transactions” but also for other kinds of markets, notably ones on the internet, in which services link consumers and businesses. Such “two-sided platforms,” the court said, require special and seemingly more forgiving antitrust scrutiny.

U.S. rate-rigging payouts top $500 million as final banks settle.  Investors have reached $96 million in settlements with the final five defendants in private U.S. litigation accusing banks of rigging a key interest rate benchmark in the global derivatives market, boosting the total payout to more than $500 million. BNP Paribas SA and Morgan Stanley will each pay $33.5 million, Nomura Holdings Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. will each pay $8.75 million, and brokerage ICAP Capital Markets LLC will pay $11.5 million, according to filings in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Upon receiving court approval, the settlements would increase the total recovered from 14 banks plus ICAP to $504.5 million.

Disney’s Bid for Fox Clears US Antitrust Hurdle.  The Walt Disney Co. on Wednesday won U.S. antitrust approval for its $71.3 billion bid for Twenty-First Century Fox’s entertainment assets. Disney must first sell its 22 regional sports networks, the Department of Justice said. The company has 90 days to sell the networks, with an option to extend for another 90 days.

Visa, Mastercard close to settle issues over card-swipe fees – WSJ.  Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are close to settling a long-running antitrust lawsuit with merchants over the fees they pay while they accept card payments, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Under the settlement, Visa, Mastercard and a number of banks that issue debit and credit cards including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. would pay the merchants around $6.5 billion, the report said on.wsj.com/2Kx4Wby, citing some of the people. It is not clear how the payment would be split up among the card networks and the issuing banks, according to the report

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

New FTC chair wants to look at market power of big internet companies.  Joseph Simons, the new chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), said on Wednesday that the agency would keep a close eye on big tech companies that dominate the internet. Simons said the power of the big tech platforms – none of which he cited by name – raised new questions about competition and privacy. “It makes it very appropriate for it to be the subject of hearings and for us to get input on that,” he said at a question session with reporters. Controversies surrounding Facebook and Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, have led to calls for the FTC to look more closely at whether these companies use their market power to hurt potential rivals.

Hawaii, Japan Airlines Seek OK to Coordinate Flights.  Hawaiian Airlines and Japan Airlines have submitted paperwork seeking to join forces to potentially bring hundreds of thousands of more people to Hawaii. The airlines have recently filed an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Japanese government requesting immunity from antitrust laws to create a joint venture, West Hawaii Today reported. The partnership would allow the companies to coordinate flight schedules and share certain costs and revenues as well as work together on marketing and advertising, the airlines said in the filings.

U.S. top court mulls Apple’s App Store commissions in antitrust case.  The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up Apple Inc.’s bid to escape a lawsuit accusing it of breaking federal antitrust laws by monopolizing the market for iPhone software applications and causing consumers to pay more than they should. The justices said they would hear Apple’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that revived the proposed class-action lawsuit by iPhone buyers over commissions that the Cupertino, California-based technology company receives through its App Store. The case could expand the threat of antitrust damages against companies in the rapidly growing field of electronic commerce, which generates hundreds of billions of dollars annually in U.S. retail sales.

EU sees signs of improvement after Google antitrust shopping case.  It is too early to judge Google’s reforms in response to an antitrust case over online shopping, though there are signs some rivals are benefiting, Europe’s competition chief said. The comments from European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager come amid calls from Google’s competitors for her to take more drastic action against the world’s most popular internet search engine. A year after being hit with a record 2.4-billion-euro ($2.8 billion) fine by the European Commission, Google has yet to create a level playing field, according to rivals such as British comparison shopping sites Foundem and Kelkoo and others in the travel search, digital mapping and publishing markets.

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

U.S. antitrust official says worries over limiting vertical deals ‘misplaced’.  A top antitrust official at the U.S. Justice Department attempted to reassure investors on Thursday that worries that regulators would crack down on proposed combinations of two companies on a supply chain — known as vertical mergers — were overblown.  Makan Delrahim, the assistant attorney general for antitrust, said that most proposed transactions were either good for consumers or neutral.  But the department’s decision in November to sue to stop AT&T Inc, which owns DirecTV, from buying Time Warner Inc. made investors question whether other vertical deals might also meet with skepticism from antitrust enforcers.

Exclusive: U.S. Justice Department probes T-Mobile-Sprint merger effect on smaller wireless companies – sources.  The U.S. Department of Justice is examining how the proposed merger between T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp. could affect prices for smaller wireless operators, according to two people familiar with the matter.  A T-Mobile and Sprint merger would eliminate competition between the two carriers that have been the dominant players in selling network access to wireless companies that often serve pre-paid or price-conscious consumers, and could lead to higher prices for those users.  The Justice Department, which is evaluating T-Mobile’s $26 billion deal to buy Sprint, has been speaking with small wireless operators that buy access to the major wireless networks at wholesale rates, and is seeking their opinions about the merger, the people said, who declined to be named because the talks are confidential.

Comcast to Win Unconditional EU Okay for Sky Bid: Sources.  U.S. cable company Comcast is set to gain unconditional EU antitrust approval for its bid to buy European pay-TV company Sky, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The world’s biggest entertainment company is battling Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox for Sky.  The media mogul bid’s to buy all of Sky has been delayed by politicians and regulators worried about the power of the enlarged media group. The European Commission, which is scheduled to decide on Comcast’s offer by June 15, did not respond to a request for comment by email. It cleared without conditions Fox’s bid for Sky in April last year.

Google Faces EU Antitrust Fine Over Android Case in July: Sources.  Google is expected to be hit with a second EU antitrust fine in mid-July for using its dominant Android mobile operating system to squeeze out rivals, three people familiar with the matter said.  The European Commission, which has been investigating the case involving the unit of Alphabet since 2015, could issue its decision in the week of July 9, although the timing might change.  As a deterrent to others, the EU penalty is likely to top the record 2.4-billion-euro ($2.8 billion) fine handed out to Google last year for unfairly favoring its shopping service, sources told Reuters last year.

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

EU antitrust official sees more scrutiny for Facebook, others.  Facebook and other tech giants may attract more regulatory scrutiny in future because of their market power, a senior EU antitrust official said. Tommaso Valletti, chief economist at the European Commission’s competition unit, rejected calls by some – especially in the United States – for regulators to adopt a hands-off approach to avoid stifling innovation. Unlike internet search engine Google which has been in the EU antitrust crosshairs for close to a decade, Facebook has not drawn the attention of the Commission, the world’s most aggressive competition enforcer.

U.S. Senate panel to hold hearing on Sprint T-Mobile merger.  A U.S. Senate committee plans to hold a hearing on June 27 on the proposed $26.5 billion merger of U.S. wireless carriers T-Mobile US and Sprint Corp. No witnesses have been announced for the hearing to be held by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee that oversees antitrust issues announced on Wednesday. However T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere and Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure met with the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission earlier this month to tout the proposed tie-up and are likely to testify, officials said.

Yelp seeks to revive EU antitrust complaint against Google.  Yelp Inc said it has renewed a European antitrust complaint against Alphabet Inc’s Google, seeking to gain traction on a longstanding accusation that the search giant unfairly promotes its own services in results. A similar complaint Yelp filed in 2014 has not led the European Union to issue a formal charge against Google, nor have letters and testimony to U.S. regulators led to charges. But the company said it has strengthened its complaint by looking at the EU’s ruling last year that Google misused its dominance in product shopping search results. Google, which is appealing a $2.9-billion fine in that case, declined to comment.

E.U. Settles With Russia’s Gazprom Over Antitrust Charges.  The European Commission said on Thursday that it had reached a settlement with Gazprom, finally concluding a long-running antitrust investigation into the Russian energy giant’s dominance in regional gas markets. Officials in Brussels said the company had accepted a series of concessions, but unlike with competition inquiries into other companies like Google and Intel, it declined to issue any financial penalties. That provoked criticism in countries like Poland, which say they have been squeezed by the energy company in the past, and fear that the deal between Gazprom and the European Commission does not go far enough to prevent similar behavior in the future.

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

Sprint, T-Mobile Have to Sell $26.5B Deal to Antitrust Cops.  To gain approval for their $26.5 billion merger agreement, T-Mobile and Sprint aim to convince antitrust regulators that there is plenty of competition for wireless service beyond Verizon and AT&T.  The deal announced Sunday would combine the nation’s third- and fourth-largest wireless companies and bulk them up to a similar size to Verizon and AT&T, the industry giants.  But the companies argued that the combination would allow them to better compete not only with those two rivals but also with Comcast and others as the wireless, broadband and video industries converge.

EU considers using algorithms to detect anti-competitive acts.  EU regulators may set up their own algorithms to find companies that use software to fix prices with peers or squeeze out their rivals, Europe’s antitrust chief said on Friday.  The comments by European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager underline the unease among policy enforcers about technologically-advanced tools such as computer algorithms that make it easier for companies to collude without any formal agreement or even human interaction.  The European Commission’s inquiry into e-commerce last year, for example, found that two-thirds of retailers use algorithms to track their competitors’ prices.

Would AT&T’s Time Warner Deal Help or Hurt Consumers?  Judge Will Now Decide.  Lawyers faced off over the future of AT&T’s $85.4 billion blockbuster merger with Time Warner for a final time in a courtroom, sparring over what the deal would mean to consumers.  The Justice Department, which sued to block the deal, argued that the merger would cost people millions of dollars a year by limiting competition.  If the judge does approve the deal, the government said, the court should force the companies to sell off certain business lines to protect consumers.  But the companies countered that the government had failed to make its case.

UTC gains EU antitrust approval to buy Rockwell Collins.  U.S. aerospace and industrial company United Technologies Corp secured conditional EU approval on Friday for its $23 billion bid for avionics maker Rockwell Collins, the largest aerospace deal in history.  The European Commission, which acts as the competition watchdog in the European Union, said UTC agreed to sell businesses making actuators, pilot controls, ice protection and oxygen systems.  The European Commission said concessions offered by UTC addressed its concerns about the deal, confirming a Reuters report on May 2.