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

Apple accused of pressuring game rivals in Japan: Nikkei.  Japanese regulators are investigating Apple Inc over allegations it unfairly pressured Yahoo Japan Corp to slow the expansion of its online games platform, which competes with Apple’s App Store, Japanese media reported on Thursday. The Fair Trade Commission is looking at whether Apple interfered in Yahoo Japan’s operations by pressuring it to cut back on developing its Game Plus web-based service which enables users to stream games without downloading apps, the Nikkei newspaper reported.

Independent Labels Urge EU to Block Sony’s $2.3 Billion Bid for EMI.  Independent music labels group Impala has called on EU antitrust regulators to block Sony Corp’s bid to become the world’s largest music publisher with its $2.3 billion (£1.8 billion) offer for control of EMI, saying the combination would have too much market power. Sony announced the deal in May, the boldest strategy move by its new CEO Kenichiro Yoshida, which would give it rights to 2.1 million songs from artists such as Drake, Sam Smith, Pharrell Williams and Sia. The Japanese conglomerate, which currently owns a 30 percent stake in EMI, wants to buy Mubalada Investment Co’s 60 percent stake.

Sprint partners with LG to launch 5G smartphone in 2019.  Sprint Corp said Tuesday it has partnered with phone manufacturer LG Electronics Inc to launch a 5G smartphone in the first half of next year, marking the first 5G device deal for the No. 4 U.S. wireless carrier. Sprint is working to persuade antitrust regulators to approve its merger with larger rival T-Mobile US Inc in a $26 billion deal, which the companies say will help them more quickly build the next-generation wireless network. That network is expected to eventually pave the way for new technologies like autonomous cars.

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

Beer drinkers lose U.S. appeal over Anheuser-SABMiller merger.  A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected an antitrust challenge by 23 beer drinkers to Anheuser-Busch InBev SA’s (ABI.BR) $107 billion purchase in 2016 of SABMiller Plc, which they claimed would thwart competition and raise prices in the U.S. beer market. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Portland, Oregon said SABMiller’s agreement with antitrust regulators to divest its U.S. beer business, by selling its stake in the MillerCoors joint venture to Molson Coors Brewing Co (TAP.N), would prevent increased concentration in the industry. It also rejected as speculative the argument that the merger violated the federal Clayton Act because it gave Molson Coors an incentive to adopt Anheuser’s distribution practices, to combat its rival’s newly increased size.

Appeals Court Rejects Magazine Anti-Trust Lawsuit.  A federal appeals court has rejected an antitrust lawsuit brought against publishers by what was once one of the country’s largest wholesale magazine distributors. In an opinion published Monday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan agreed with a lower-court judge in rejecting Anderson News LLC’s claims, first brought in 2009. The Knoxville, Tennessee company argued that publishers controlling 80 percent of the nation’s magazines conspired to drive it out of business by rejecting its demand that publishers pay 7-cent surcharges on each magazine distributed. The company said the surcharge was necessary to remain profitable.

Sprint, T-Mobile in early stages of regulatory review, no decisions yet: source.  U.S. antitrust enforcers are in the early stages of reviewing T-Mobile US Inc’s to buy Sprint Corp for $26 billion, and have reached no conclusions on how many wireless carriers the country needs, a source familiar with the situation said. Sprint shares were up 8.7 percent at $6.11 and T-Mobile rose 6.7 percent to $65.65 in late-afternoon trading, after the New York Post reported that U.S. regulators believed that just three national providers were needed, removing an obstacle to the deal. The two companies compete against AT&T and Verizon to provide U.S. wireless service.

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

DOJ Looks Into How AT&T, Verizon Handle Defecting Customers. The Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into whether AT&T, Verizon and a standards-setting group worked together to stop consumers from easily switching wireless carriers. The companies confirmed the inquiry in separate statements late Friday in response to a report in The New York Times. The U.S. government is looking into whether AT&T, Verizon and telecommunications standards organization GSMA worked together to suppress a technology that lets people remotely switch wireless companies without having to insert a new SIM card into their phones.

EU antitrust chief says investigation of Google’s Android, AdSense is advancing. Investigations into how Google may be using its Android smartphone operating system and its AdSense advertising service to thwart rivals are advancing, Europe’s antitrust chief said on Wednesday, amid concern about the lengthy proceedings. The European Commission opened its investigation into Android in 2015, following a complaint two years earlier from the lobbying group FairSearch. A 2016 document seen by Reuters said the EU competition enforcer planned to levy a large fine against the company and would order it to stop giving revenue-sharing payments to smartphone makers to pre-install only Google Search.

Time Warner C.E.O. Testifies That AT&T Merger Is Needed to Battle Silicon Valley. Time Warner’s chief executive, Jeffrey Bewkes, vigorously defended his company’s $85.4 billion merger with AT&T on Wednesday, saying the deal was necessary to confront “tectonic changes” in entertainment caused by internet competitors like Netflix and Amazon. Mr. Bewkes was the first top executive from Time Warner and AT&T to take the stand in federal court to argue against the Justice Department’s lawsuit to block the merger. The Justice Department had sued to stop the blockbuster deal in November, arguing that a union of the two companies would harm consumers and weaken competition.

Fox chose Disney over Comcast on regulatory, stock fears: filing. Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox Inc, which agreed in December to sell most of its assets to Walt Disney Co for $52.4 billion, had previously rejected a bid from Comcast Corp over concerns about the regulatory risks and its stock value, a regulatory filing on Wednesday showed. The joint filing by Disney and Fox, which outlines the timeline of their negotiations, offers the most detailed insight yet into Fox’s thinking, as it goes head-to-head against Comcast, a U.S. cable operator, in its bid to acquire European pay-TV company Sky Plc, in which Fox holds a 39 percent stake. Comcast announced in February it was working on a $31 billion bid that would top Fox’s deal for Sky. It has not made a new attempt to bid for the Fox assets after the Disney deal, so investors are keen for information on the hurdles that prevented an agreement between Fox and Comcast.

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

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Lawsuit by Minor Leaguers. The Supreme Court declined to hear a lawsuit filed by minor league baseball players accusing Major League Baseball of colluding to suppress wages, leaving intact a District Court ruling that dismissed the case.  In a one-sentence announcement Monday, the Supreme Court said it would not accept Miranda v. Selig, a suit filed by four minor leaguers in December 2014 alleging MLB’s hiring and employment policies violated antitrust laws by restraining competition among teams and illegally depressing minor league salaries.  U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. dismissed the case the following September, citing the antitrust exemption granted professional baseball by the Supreme Court in 1922 and the failure of Congress to alter it for minor leaguers in the Curt Flood Act of 1998.

CVS likely wants FTC antitrust review, not Justice Department, of Aetna deal. It is uncertain who in the U.S. government will carry out an antitrust review of CVS Health Corp’s deal to buy health insurer Aetna Inc, but the drugstore company is likely hoping the potentially more lenient Federal Trade Commission gets the nod, antitrust experts say.  The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and Federal Trade Commission share the job of reviewing mergers to make sure they don’t hurt consumers, but sometimes it comes down to a coin toss as to who reviews a deal that involves both agencies’ areas of expertise.  The Justice Department might be best-placed since it recently reviewed, and stopped, two insurance industry tie-ups, including Aetna’s plan to buy rival Humana Inc.

Trump and Warren Find Common Ground on Antitrust. President Trump and Senator Elizabeth Warren make odd antitrust bedfellows. Ms. Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, says megadeals like Aetna’s $77 billion sale to CVS could kill competition.  She also backs the Justice Department’s fight against an AT&T-Time Warner merger and has concerns about past merger remedies.  That puts her in the same camp as the president.  She laid out her views on deal making in a speech on Wednesday. AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner, she said, would mean higher prices, fewer choices and worse service for consumers.  That echoes Mr. Trump’s antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, and the Justice Department’s November lawsuit to block the deal, which asserted that the merger would leave millions of television viewers paying more and would slow innovations like video streaming.

AT&T/Time Warner antitrust trial set for March. The trial to determine if the U.S. Department of Justice can stop AT&T Inc’s $85 billion purchase of media company Time Warner Inc will begin on March 19 with no decision expected before the companies’ April 22 deadline to complete the deal, a federal judge said on Thursday.  Time Warner and AT&T, which is the No. 2 U.S. wireless company and also owns DirecTV, announced their deal in October 2016, but it was not until last month that the Justice Department sued AT&T to block the deal, arguing it could raise prices for rivals and pay-TV subscribers and hamper the development of online video.  Judge Richard Leon said during a hearing on Thursday he would likely not have a decision by the deadline in the companies’ merger agreement, but would rule in late April or May.

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.”