Antitrust and Consumer Protection
Competition: Spring 2017, Vol 26, No. 1
Content
- Antitrust, Ucl and Privacy Section Executive Committee 2016-2017
- Assessing Damages In Privacy Cases: a Panel Discussion With Andrew Serwin, Jay Edelson and Garrett Glasgow
- Below-cost Pricing: Recent Defense-friendly Decisions
- California Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Update: Procedural Law
- California Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Update: Substantive Law
- Chair's Column
- Criminal Antitrust Enforcement During the Obama Administration
- Editor's Note
- Golden State Institute's 26th Anniversary Edition
- In re: Cox Enterprises, Inc. Set-top Cable Television Box Antirust Litigation: a Panel Discussion With Trial Counsel
- Keynote Address: a Conversation With California Supreme Court Justice Carol a. Corrigan
- Making the Intangible Concrete: Litigating Intangible Privacy Harms In a Post-spokeo World
- Managing Antitrust and Complex Business Trials: a Discussion With Three Federal District Judges
- Roundup of 2016 Federal Antitrust and Privacy Court Decisions
- The Critical Importance—or Complete Irrelevance—of Class Ascertainability In the Class Certification Decision, and the Unacceptable Circuit Split
- United States Vab Electroluxand General Electric Company: a Panel Discussion With Trial Counsel
UNITED STATES VAB ELECTROLUXAND GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY: A PANEL DISCUSSION WITH TRIAL COUNSEL
Moderated by Peter Huston1
I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
Each year the Federal Trade Commission and Antitrust Division of the DOJ are notified of hundreds of proposed mergers and acquisitions. They only investigate a small fraction of those. An even smaller fraction get a full "second request." A smaller fraction still are challenged with complaints seeking to enjoin the deals. And only some of those actually go to trial. In short, merger trials are rare.
One of those rare merger trials took place in late 2015 when the DOJ sued to stop the $3.3 billion sale of General Electric’s appliance business to Electrolux, a Swedish company. GE sold appliances under its own name with various subbrands, including GE Monogram, GE Profile, and GE Cafe. They also sold under the Hotpoint label. Electrolux sells under its own name but also sells under the more well-known Frigidaire brand and under the Tappan brand. They also manufactured the products for Sears to sell under the Kenmore brand.