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

Anthem Gives Up Cigna Bid, Vows to Fight on Over Damages.  Anthem has ended its soured, $48 billion bid to buy rival Cigna, but the nation’s second-largest health insurer isn’t giving up a fight over whether Cigna deserves a termination fee for the scrapped deal.  Anthem said Friday that Cigna sabotaged the merger agreement and caused “massive damages” for Anthem, which provides Blue Cross-Blue Shield coverage in several states.  Indianapolis-based Anthem announced its decision a day after a Delaware judge refused its request to extend a ban blocking Cigna from pulling out of the deal.  The deal, announced in 2015, had already been rejected by a federal judge and an appeals court after antitrust regulators sued last summer to stop it. Anthem Inc. said last week that it would seek a Supreme Court review of the case.

EU to Launch More E-commerce Antitrust Investigations.  The European Union plans to launch more antitrust investigations into e-commerce companies after a two-year inquiry uncovered business practices that restrict competition, the European Commission said on Wednesday.  In its report on the initial inquiry, the EU executive said it had found an increased use of contractual restrictions to control product distribution, which could be in breach of EU antitrust rules.  “Certain practices by companies in e-commerce markets may restrict competition by unduly limiting how products are distributed throughout the EU,” Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

Bumble Bee Foods Fined $25 Million, Admits Price Fixing.  Tuna-canning company Bumble Bee Foods has agreed to pay a $25 million fine after pleading guilty to conspiring with competitors to fix prices, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday.  The San Diego-based company will also cooperate with an ongoing antitrust investigation into the packaged seafood industry, the federal agency said.  The fine will increase to $81.5 million if the company is sold.  The criminal charge reflects broader concerns about competition within the industry.

Trump U.S. Antitrust Nominee Says will be Independent of White House.  Makan Delrahim, who was chosen by President Donald Trump to be the top U.S. antitrust regulator, said on Wednesday that he would maintain independence from the White House in enforcing antitrust law.  The Senate must still vote to confirm Delrahim.

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

U.S. Appeals Court Blocks Anthem Bid to Merge with Rival Cigna.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday blocked health insurer Anthem Inc.’s bid to merge with Cigna, upholding a lower court’s decision that the $54 billion deal should not be allowed because it would lead to higher prices for healthcare.  The ruling will probably kill the proposed merger, which was opposed by the U.S. Justice Department, 11 states and a District Court judge after consumers, medical professionals and others objected to it.  In the end, Cigna itself tried to back out.  Still, Anthem and Cigna have the option of trying to save the deal by asking the appeals court to re-consider the case or appealing straight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

How Trump’s Pick for Top Antitrust Cop May Shape Competition.  Makan Delrahim, the nominee for chief antitrust cop at the Justice Department, was 10 when his family immigrated to the United States from Iran as Jewish political refugees.  Unable to speak English, he struggled to keep up in school. He worked afternoons and weekends at his father’s gas station near Los Angeles until college.  As a young Senate staff member years later, Mr. Delrahim found those early experiences had laid the foundation for his conservative views.

Sanofi Files U.S. Antitrust Lawsuit Against Mylan Over EpiPen.  France’s Sanofi SA on Monday sued Mylan NV, accusing the pharmaceutical company of engaging in illegal conduct to squelch competition to its EpiPen allergy treatment, which has been at the center of a public debate over drug prices.  In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, Sanofi said Mylan caused it to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in sales by erecting barriers to U.S. consumers’ access to and use of a rival product, Auvi-Q.  In particular, Sanofi said Mylan offered rebates to insurers, pharmaceutical benefit managers and state Medicaid agencies conditioned on Auvi-Q not being an epinephrine auto-injector device they would reimburse for use by consumers.

FTC Allows Sycamore to Sell Family Dollar Stores to Dollar General.  The Federal Trade Commission gave a private equity firm approval on Thursday to sell to Dollar General Corp 323 stores that Sycamore purchased as part of a divestiture package two years ago, the agency said on Thursday.  Sycamore Partners II, LP bought the stores in 2015 when Dollar Tree was forced to sell shops in 35 states to win antitrust approval to buy the Family Dollar chain in what was then a $9.2 billion deal.  Sycamore, which had created Dollar Express LLC to run the business, asked the FTC to approve the stores’ transfer to competitor Dollar General (DG.N) in March and said in a document filed with the FTC that the chain could “no longer viably operate as a standalone business.”

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

U.S. telecoms industry set for M&A negotiations frenzy.  In 10 days, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will lift a ban on telecoms companies engaging in merger talks, and Wall Street is betting on T-Mobile US Inc., Sprint Corp and Dish Network Corp to be the first ones out of the gate.  Shares of these companies have soared over the past 12 months on expectations of deal talks, and are trading at up to 31 times forward earnings, versus the S&P 500 telecom services index’s .5SP50 18 times.  The rich valuations could discourage acquirers, who also have to assume the risk that antitrust regulators may look askance at more consolidation in the sector after a wave of mergers in recent years, investment bankers and industry experts say.

Antitrust Agencies Say Alaska Health Policy Stifles Competition.  Federal antitrust officials on April 12 urged Alaska lawmakers to repeal the state’s program requiring health-care providers to obtain state approval before expanding.  At the request of a state lawmaker, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission weighed in, saying the restrictions can harm competition by limiting the availability of new health care services.  Alaska Sen. David Wilson (R) is sponsoring legislation to repeal the program.

Maersk Wins Conditional EU Approval for Hamburg Sud Takeover.  World No. 1 shipping company Maersk Line gained EU antitrust approval on Monday for its acquisition of Hamburg Sud (HSDG) after agreeing to pull the German company out from five consortia on trade routes to address competition concerns.  The bid by Maersk, part of Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk, underscores the wave of mergers in an industry struggling with over-capacity and slowing global trade.

Siemens, Bombardier Vie for Control of Rail Joint Venture-Sources.  Talks about uniting the rail operations of Germany’s Siemens and Canada’s Bombardier are being complicated by the desire of both companies to keep control of a merged business, two people close to the matter said on Wednesday.  Antitrust issues and political considerations could also ultimately make a deal to create a company with combined sales of $16 billion hard to pull off, industry experts said.  The two groups are talking about a joint venture that could compete better with Chinese state-backed market leader CRRC, which is expanding aggressively abroad and would still be twice their combined size by revenue.

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

EU’s Vestager Warns Companies Against Abusing Algorithms.  Europe’s antitrust chief on Thursday warned companies against using algorithms to block rivals or form cartels, saying she may slap heftier fines on them if they use such software to commit wrongdoing.  European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who is poised to fine U.S. technology giant Google in the coming months for using its algorithm to unfairly demote rival shopping services in internet search results, said she was vigilant to such illegal practices.

British Regulators to Investigate 21st Century Fox’s Deal for Sky.  Britain asked regulators on Thursday to investigate whether 21st Century Fox’s $14.3 billion deal to take full control of the British satellite television giant Sky would give the media mogul Rupert Murdoch too much control over the country’s media landscape.  The takeover for the 61 percent of Sky that 21st Century Fox does not already own was agreed on in December and is the second such effort to combine the two companies since 2011.  The latest attempt quickly raised a wave of criticism in Britain, where Mr. Murdoch already holds several media interests.

EU Seeks to Encourage Whistleblowers in Fight Against Cartels.  EU antitrust regulators on Thursday unveiled plans to help individuals to blow the whistle on cartels while protecting their identity, a move which may lead to more cases of wrongdoing being uncovered in the future.  The European Commission, which currently relies on companies to alert them to cartels in exchange for no sanction, said the scheme is aimed at employees who want to do the right thing by stopping illegal price fixing.

Exclusive: Delrahim to Head Justice Department Aantitrust Unit – Sources.  Makan Delrahim, a veteran lobbyist on President Donald Trump’s transition team, is expected to be nominated to head the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, two sources familiar with the vetting process told Reuters on Friday.  Delrahim is expected to move to the Justice Department after finishing up in the White House counsel’s office, where he is working to steer Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch through the Senate confirmation process.

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

Anthem Sues Cigna to Block Termination of Merger.  Anthem on Wednesday won a temporary restraining order that blocks smaller rival Cigna from officially terminating their proposed $54 billion merger, a transaction already rejected by U.S. antitrust regulators.  The deal would have created the largest U.S. health insurer.  Rivals Aetna and Humana had sought their own merger, representing an unprecedented consolidation among U.S. health insurers.  In separate rulings, federal judges struck down both deals as anticompetitive, at the request of the Justice Department.  Aetna and Humana said on Tuesday they were ending their deal, but Anthem filed an appeal of its ruling.

Top Antitrust Senators Call for Sessions to Scrutinize AT&T-Time Warner Merger.  The top senators on the  Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel are urging the U.S. Department of Justice to scrutinize the proposed AT&T-Time Warner merger for the possibility that it leads to anticompetitive practices.  The subcommittee’s chair, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) wrote a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions pointing to aspects of the deal that they find troubling.

U.S. Antitrust Obstacles Seen for T-Mobile, Sprint Deal.  Japan’s SoftBank Corp Group may have renewed interest in combining its Sprint Corp with Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile US Inc., but a deal between the No. 3 and No. 4 U.S. wireless carriers may not make it past U.S. regulators, antitrust experts and industry watchers said.  SoftBank is prepared to give up control of Sprint to T-Mobile, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.  The companies are expected to begin negotiations in April after the Federal Communications Commission’s auction of airwaves concludes.

Kraft Heinz Offers to Buy Unilever in $143 Billion Deal.  The world’s grocery carts could soon be filled with more and more products from one global colossus.  Food, beverage and consumer-goods companies have been seeking merger partners to obtain greater scale and efficiencies as consumers, particularly younger shoppers, eschew the boxed and jarred foods of their parents’ generation.  Now, one such recently merged giant, Kraft Heinz, has set its sights on the biggest target to date: Unilever, the home of Dove soap and Axe body spray, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Hellmann’s mayonnaise.  But a merger would be certain to draw antitrust reviews by regulators from many countries.