A View from Constantine Cannon’s London Office

By Richard Pike and Yulia Tosheva

The European Commission has reportedly launched a preliminary antitrust investigation into possible collusion by Western Union in the money remittance market.

According to sources, the European Commission is investigating whether exclusivity contracts signed between money-transfer provider Western Union and retail outlets violate European Union competition rules.

The European Commission is reportedly also looking into allegations that banks agreed to close accounts of some smaller money-transfer companies on the basis that they may be linked to drug-trafficking or terrorism.  This so-called de-risking strategy has been the subject of much discussion in the industry over the last few years, and gave rise to a claim in the English courts by one money transfer provider, Dahabshiil, which succeeded in using the Competition Act to get an interim injunction requiring Barclays to continue providing it with banking services.

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

Google CEO to meet EU antitrust chief on Feb. 25 – sources. Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai will meet Europe’s antitrust chief Thursday for the first time since his appointment last August, according to sources.  European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who has accused the world’s biggest Internet search engine of favoring its shopping service over rivals’ when delivering search results, is considering acting against Google.  Possible sanctions could include ordering Google to change its business practices, as well as a fine of up to 10 percent of its global turnover.

Antitrust lawsuit against NCAA moves toward bid for monetary damages. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA and 11 major conferences are asking a federal judge to grant class-action status to groups of athletes seeking monetary damages based on the difference between the value of a traditional athletic scholarship and one that also covers the full cost of attending college.  The prospective classes could cover tens of thousands of athletes and seek hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

U.S. appeals court upholds Apple e-book settlement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has upheld Apple’s $450 million settlement of claims that it harmed consumers by conspiring with five publishers to raise e-book prices.  The appellate court rejected a challenge to the fairness, reasonableness and adequacy of Apple’s class-action antitrust settlement with consumers and 33 state attorneys general.  The alleged conspiracy caused some e-book prices to rise to $12.99 or $14.99 from Amazon’s $9.99 price, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

A View from Constantine Cannon’s London Office

By Yulia Tosheva and Richard Pike

Google won a big victory Friday in the High Court of England and Wales, which ruled that Google did not abuse its dominant position to the detriment of the now-defunct UK online mapping provider, Streetmap.

The Court’s ruling against Streetmap’s claim for damages from Google for abuse of a dominant position (or monopolization, as it would be called in the U.S.) has rightly been hailed as a thorough and careful assessment of both the factual and legal issues. The High Court judge responsible, the Honourable Mr. Justice Peter Roth, is a competition law expert who has recently taken over as the President of the specialist Competition Appeals Tribunal.

Streetmap argued that it lost market share and ultimately failed because of the introduction of Google’s “Maps OneBox” at the top of its search results page in 2007. The Maps OneBox included a Google Map and no maps from rival providers. Streetmap claimed that Google had a dominant position in online search, and that the introduction of the Maps OneBox represented an abuse of that dominance to secure an advantage in an allegedly separate market for online maps.

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A View from Constantine Cannon’s London Office

By Irene Fraile and Richard Pike

On 12 February 2016, the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”), UK’s competition regulator, fined a number of pharma companies for anti-competitive conduct and agreements in relation to the supply of paroxetine (an anti-depressant drug).

The anti-competitive conduct dates back to 2001, when pharmaceutical producers including Alpharma Limited (“Alpharma”) and Generics UK Limited (“GUK”) were preparing to launch their generic versions of paroxetine in the UK. At the time GlaxoSmithKline plc (“GSK”) held certain patents in relation to paroxetine and commercialised a branded version of the drug, Seroxat, which was a “blockbuster” product with annual sales over $130 million in the UK.

GSK commenced litigation proceedings against GUK and Alpharma for patent infringement. However, before the cases went to trial, GUK and Alpharma each entered into settlement agreements with GSK, which included terms prohibiting their independent entry into the UK paroxetine market in return for payments and other value transfers totalling over £50 million (c. $72 million).

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

Senate panel to hear from U.S. antitrust bosses. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee will hear from the top U.S. antitrust enforcers next month to discuss a wave of of major, controversial mergers.  The Justice Department is investigating two large insurance mergers—Aetna buying Humana, and Anthem buying Cigna—to insure they comply with antitrust law.  The Federal Trade Commission is suing to block Staples from acquiring Office Depot.  The hearing will be conducted on March 9 by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel.

Staples-Office Depot Merger Approved in Europe, With Concessions. The European Commission has approved the $6.3 billion merger of Staples and Office Depot after the companies agreed to sell some of Office Depot’s operations in Europe to ease competition concerns.  The approval comes just over two months after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued to block the transaction over similar competition issues.  European regulators and the FTC both raised concerns that the combination of the office supply companies would significantly reduce competition for office supply contracts sold to large companies.

EU investigating possible rigging of debt market, sources say. European Union antitrust regulators are investigating several banks for possible rigging of the $1.5 trillion government-sponsored bond market, according to sources.  The investigation is the latest in a series of actions against suspected wrongdoing in financial services, including alleged attempts to rig the markets for Libor and foreign exchange.

UK watchdog fines GSK $54 million over ‘pay-for-delay’ drug deals. Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority has fined GlaxoSmithKline  37.6 million pounds ($54.4 million) for market abuse in striking deals to delay the launch of cheap generic copies of its former blockbuster antidepressant Seroxat.  Generic drug companies involved, including Germany’s Merck KGaA, were also fined smaller amounts, bringing the total penalties to 45 million pounds.  The CMA’s action is the latest example of regulators trying to curb “pay-for-delay” deals by drug companies, and follows previous actions by U.S. and European antitrust authorities.