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

Several banks dismissed from U.S. metals price-fixing lawsuits.  A U.S. judge has dismissed five large banks from two antitrust lawsuits by investors alleging multi-year conspiracies to rig prices for hundreds of billions of dollars of transactions in the global silver and gold markets. U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni threw out all claims over alleged silver price-fixing against Bank of America Corp, Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas SA, Standard Chartered Plc and UBS Group AG. The Manhattan judge also dismissed UBS from the gold-fixing case.

NXP’s Chief Criticizes China After Qualcomm Deal Collapses.  The finger-pointing over the scuttled $44 billion transaction between the chip makers Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors has begun. Richard Clemmer, chief executive of NXP, had some harsh words on Thursday for officials in China over the deal’s collapse amid a trade war between Washington and Beijing. The acquisition was terminated after it failed to secure regulatory approval from Chinese authorities before a deadline set by the companies at midnight Eastern time on Wednesday.

EU fines Philips, Asus, Pioneer, Denon & Marantz total 111 mln euros.  EU antitrust authorities handed down a total fine of 111.2 million euros ($130.1 million) to Philips, Pioneer, Asus and Denon & Marantz on Tuesday for fixing online resale prices. The European Commission opened an investigation into the four companies in February last year as part of its crackdown against curbs on online sales across-borders, such as restricting offers based on a customer’s location or nationality. The EU competition enforcer said the companies engaged in “fixed or minimum resale price maintenance” by restricting the ability of their online retailers to set their own retail prices for widely used consumer electronics products such as kitchen appliances, notebooks and hi-fi products.

Blackstone wins EU approval to buy Thomson Reuters unit.  U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group has secured EU antitrust approval to acquire a majority stake in Thomson Reuters’ Financial and Risk unit, the European Commission said on Monday. Blackstone is making its biggest bet since the financial crisis with the $20 billion deal which pits co-founder Stephen Schwarzman against fellow billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Much like Thomson Reuters, Blackstone’s portfolio company Ipreo also provides financial information products to financial market professionals. The EU enforcer said it did not see any competition concerns despite the overlaps between the two companies.

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

EU Google decision delayed to next week, source says, as Trump visits.  EU antitrust regulators have postponed to next week a finding against Google’s Android mobile operating system, a person familiar with the matter said, avoiding any clash with a visit to Brussels by U.S. President Donald Trump. The European Commission had scheduled a meeting of national competition agencies for Tuesday to brief them on the case, including what is expected to be a record-breaking fine against Alphabet unit Google. But the meeting has been rescheduled to July 17, the person said, without giving a reason for the change. Other sources said they expected a delay due to the presence of Trump, who is due to attend a NATO summit in Brussels this week.

Justice Department to Appeal Approval of AT&T Acquisition of Time Warner.  The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday it would appeal a federal judge’s approval of AT&T Inc.’s $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner, raising the prospect barely a month after the deal closed that it could be undone. AT&T was sued by the Justice Department on antitrust grounds, saying that the deal would harm consumers, but U.S. District Judge Richard Leon last month approved the deal, allowing it to move forward following a lengthy trial. The merger, first announced in October 2016, was also opposed by President Donald Trump. Leon ruled that the tie-up between AT&T’s wireless and satellite businesses with Time Warner’s movies and television shows was legal under antitrust law.

Japan watchdog: Apple may have breached antitrust rules with iPhone.  Japanese regulators said on Wednesday Apple Inc may have breached antitrust rules by forcing mobile service providers to sell its iPhones cheaply and charge higher monthly fees, denying consumers a fair choice. The Fair Trade Commission said that the Japanese unit of Apple had forced NTT Docomo Inc., KDDI Corp. and SoftBank Group Corp. to offer subsidies and sell iPhones at a discount. “Obliging carriers to offer subsidies (for iPhones) could have prevented the carriers from offering lower monthly charges and restricted competition,” the FTC said in a statement.

Siemens, Alstom deal faces full-scale EU antitrust probe: sources.  Siemens and Alstom are set to face a full-scale EU antitrust investigation this week after declining to provide concessions to allay regulatory concerns about their plan to combine their rail operations, two people familiar with the matter said. German industrial group Siemens and French rival Alstom want to create a Franco-German rail champion to compete more effectively with bigger rival CRRC and Canada’s Bombardier Transportation. The companies had until July 6 to offer concessions to the European Commission but did not do so. Some firms prefer to wait for the EU antitrust enforcer to set out possible anti-competitive issues so they can tailor concessions to address them.

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

Tech Giants Win a Battle Over Copyright Rules in Europe.  It’s a fight nearly as old as the internet. On one side are news organizations, broadcasters and music companies that want to control how their content spreads across the web, and to be paid more for it. On the other are tech companies such as Facebook and Google, which argue that they funnel viewers and advertising revenue to media outlets, and free-speech advocates, who say that regulating the internet would set a dangerous precedent and limit access to information. That battle flared up in Europe on Thursday.

Content-hungry bidders circle ‘Big Brother’ maker Endemol.  Several bidders, including Liberty Global, are preparing offers for TV production company Endemol Shine, maker of classic reality show ‘Big Brother’ and the dystopian ‘Black Mirror’ dramas, before an initial deadline. ITV, RTL Group’s FremantleMedia and Lions Gate Entertainment are also eyeing Netherlands-based Endemol, sources close to the matter said, in a deal that comes as the rise of streaming giants Netflix and Amazon Prime has thrown the industry into turmoil.

A Record $2.5 Trillion in Mergers Were Announced in the First Half of 2018.  More than $2.5 trillion in mergers were announced during the first half of the year, as fears of Silicon Valley’s growing ambitions helped drive a record run of deal-making. Four of the 10 biggest deals were struck in part to fend off competition from the largest technology companies as the value of acquisitions announced during the first six months of the year increased 61 percent from the same period in 2017, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters. That has put mergers in 2018 on pace to surpass $5 trillion, which would top 2015 as the largest yearly total on record.

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.