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.

AT&T vs. Disney: How the Trump Administration May View 2 Mega-Mergers.  AT&T’s proposed $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner would normally have had a good chance of passing muster with antitrust officials in Washington.  Disney’s bid to purchase 21st Century Fox for $52.4 billion, on the other hand, would have had a smaller chance.  But in a break from the norm, the Justice Department has sued to block the AT&T-Time Warner deal, and has so far remained silent on the Disney-Fox deal.

EU antitrust official sees competition threat if mergers lead to high margins.  EU regulators are keeping tabs on high profit margins enjoyed by companies that are merging, concerned this may threaten competition, a senior EU antitrust official warned on Tuesday.  The comments by Chief Competition Economist Tommaso Valletti underline current unease among antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic about whether they have gone too far in allowing a recent wave of mergers and acquisitions.  Some have resulted in significant price hikes, to the detriment of consumers.

U.S. employers say CVS-Aetna deal would affect health-benefits decisions: survey.  CVS Corp.’s proposed purchase of Aetna Inc. will affect decision-making by a majority of large and mid-size U.S. corporations on employee health benefits, a survey by benefits consultant Aon Plc found.  CVS, the second-largest U.S. pharmacy benefit manager, on Dec. 3 said it agreed to buy No. 3 health insurer Aetna for $69 billion.  Reuters reported earlier this month that the deal would change the way top U.S. employers contract health benefits, based on early feedback from benefits consultants.

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

CVS Expands Into Insurance With $69 Billion Aetna Bid.  CVS Health wants to do much more than fill your prescription or jab your arm with an annual flu shot.  The drugstore chain is buying the nation’s third-largest health insurer in order to push much deeper into customer care.  The evolution won’t happen overnight, but in time, shoppers may find more clinics in CVS stores and more health care they can receive through the network of nearly 10,000 locations that the company has built.  But antitrust regulators still need to approve the deal, and that is not guarantee.

AT&T and Time Warner say proposed merger is ‘pro-consumer’.  AT&T Inc and Time Warner Inc. argued on Tuesday that their proposed $85.4 billion merger was “pro-competitive” and “pro-consumer”, as they sought to refute U.S. Justice Department allegations that the deal breaks antitrust law.  In a joint court filing, the companies focused on rebutting government efforts to show that AT&T, which owns pay-TV provider DirecTV, would raise rates for rival pay-TV companies to use Time Warner’s movies and TV shows.  They also argued that the government was wrong to worry that the deal would hamper the development of online video.

Bayer says antitrust reviews going into ‘unimaginable depths’.  The antitrust review of Bayer’s planned takeover of Monsanto is going into “unimaginable depths,” Bayer’s Chief Executive Werner Baumann said on Wednesday, but added he remained confident that the deal would be closed early next year.  “To illustrate the point, we have by now delivered more than 4 million pages of documents to the EU commission,” Baumann told a conference.  The reason for the intense scrutiny was a new focus by authorities on competition in research and development, and an effort to predict the effect on future product markets.

FCA Says Four Fund Firm May Have Breached Competition Law.  Britain’s markets regulator said four asset management companies might have broken competition law during share sales in the first case that uses its antitrust enforcement powers.  The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) alleges that Artemis Investment Management, Hargreave Hale, Newton Investment Management and River & Mercantile Asset Management shared information about how much they planned to pay for stock deals shortly before prices were officially set.  Newton said it was cooperating with the FCA, that there had been no loss to any clients or investors as a result of the activity and that it did not anticipate any loss in the future.

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

AT&T Suit May Herald a New Antitrust Era-Or Trumpian Pique.  The Trump administration’s decision to oppose the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner merger may be clouded by suspicions of political influence.  But considered on its merits, it could mark a significant departure in antitrust policy, one that might block or modify a broader set of mergers found to harm consumers.  The move disconcerted both Wall Street and the telecom and media industries, none of which expected it. Consumer groups are applauding, saying it’s a good step by the Justice Department to protect people from higher cable bills and ensure that web-based alternatives to TV aren’t stifled.

DOJ bucks China, urges SCOTUS to hear case against vitamin cartel.  On Tuesday, as President Donald Trump returned to Washington from his long trip to Asia, lawyers at the U.S. Justice Department defied China’s Ministry of Commerce in a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review the dismissal of an antitrust class action against a cartel of Chinese vitamin manufacturers.  The brief, filed by the U.S. Solicitor General and the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, argues that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paid too much deference to the Chinese ministry’s characterization of Chinese antitrust law.  The U.S. government recommended the Supreme Court hear the case, Animal Science Products v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical, to clarify how much weight U.S. courts should give to foreign sovereigns’ descriptions of their laws.

Delta Says US Approves Joint Venture With Korean Air.  Delta Air Lines says U.S. regulators have given the green light to a joint venture with Korean Air, and the carriers are waiting for approval from the South Korean government.  Delta said Friday that the U.S. Department of Transportation approved the arrangement. It still needs approval from South Korea’s transport ministry.  With antitrust immunity, the airlines can share costs and revenues from flights.

EU fines five car airbag, seatbelt suppliers over cartel.  EU antitrust regulators fined five car safety equipment makers a total of 34 million euros ($40.0 million) on Wednesday for taking part in cartels to fix prices for seatbelts, airbags and steering wheels to Japanese carmakers.  The Commission, which oversees competition policy in the European Union, said it had identified that four separate cartels in which suppliers to Toyota, Suzuki and Honda coordinated over prices and markets and exchanged sensitive information between 2004 and 2010.

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

With AT&T and Time Warner, Battle Lines Form for an Epic Antitrust Case.  If the government goes to court to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, as seems increasingly likely, it may well be the antitrust case of the decade, even without the claims of presidential meddling that have already engulfed the deal in partisan controversy.  A lawsuit by the Justice Department, along with its earlier, widely reported demands that AT&T sell either DirecTV or Turner Broadcasting to gain approval for the deal, would mark a radical departure from decades of antitrust enforcement policy, both in defining what is an unlawful anticompetitive merger and in fashioning a remedy to cure the problems.

Qualcomm-NXP ruling may be in 2018: EU competition commissioner.  A ruling on Qualcomm Inc.’s proposed $38 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors NV may come in 2018, European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said on Wednesday.  People familiar with the matter told Reuters in October that Qualcomm has offered to buy NXP without some of its patents in a bid to win EU antitrust regulatory approval.

Missouri Opens Antitrust Investigation Into Google.  Missouri’s attorney general has opened an investigation into whether Google’s business practices violate its consumer protection and antitrust laws amid growing concern over the influence of powerful technology companies.  Josh Hawley, Missouri’s attorney general, said on Monday that his office had issued a subpoena to Google to seek information into the collection and use of users’ private information, the use of other content providers’ information on its sites and potential bias in search engine results.

Japanese regulators raid Airbnb over suspected antitrust practices.  Japanese fair trade regulators raided last month the offices of Airbnb Inc over suspected violations of antitrust laws, the home rental site said on Friday, denying any wrongdoing.  The Japan Fair Trade Commission carried out an on-site inspection of Airbnb and the company is cooperating with the regulators’ investigation, Airbnb Japan said.