Antitrust in the News

Hanson Yu, Legal InternFederal Trade Commission On June 3, 2018 California Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CPA”). The CPA, which takes effect in January 2020, will give consumers unprecedented control over data that businesses gather on them and imposes significant penalties on businesses that do not comply. The CPA will force companies to establish new protocols that comply with the law’s requirements. Many of the provisions are new to the United States but appear… Read more

Jonathan LevinePritzker Levine LLP In a victory for digital privacy advocates, on June 22, 2018, the United States Supreme Court held that individuals maintain legitimate expectations of privacy, for Fourth Amendment purposes, in their cell-site location information (CSLI) maintained by cell phone companies and that the government generally may not collect CSLI from cell phone companies without a warrant. Carpenter v. United States, __ U.S. __ (2018), 2018 WL 3073916.In a 5-4 opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts, the Supreme Court… Read more

David M. GoldsteinFarmer Brownstein Jaeger & Goldstein LLP In a “gig economy” decision that will please employers but disappoint independent contractors, the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of a Sherman Act Section 1 challenge to Seattle’s ordinance authorizing a collective-bargaining process for independent contractors who work as for-hire drivers for “driver coordinators” such as Uber and Lyft. The Ninth Circuit held that the state-action immunity doctrine did not exempt the ordinance from preemption by the Sherman Act, because… Read more

Lydia Parnes and Edward HolmanWilson Sonsini LLP On June 6, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued its decision in LabMD, Inc. v. FTC, No. 16-16270 (11th Cir. June 6, 2018), a closely watched case in which LabMD challenged the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to regulate the data security practices of private companies. The Eleventh Circuit declined to decide that issue, instead finding that the FTC’s order requiring LabMD to implement certain data security reforms was unenforceable because… Read more

Reid Gaa, Summer AssociateCotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP On June 4, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California’s dismissal of a class action brought by a consumer against the chocolate manufacturer Mars, Inc. (“Mars”). Reviewing the case de novo, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the plaintiff failed to state a claim under California consumer protection laws, holding, “[i]n the absence of any affirmative misrepresentations . . .… Read more

On April 13, 2018, Judge William H. Orrick of the Northern District of California issued a foreign anti-suit injunction in Huawei Techs., Co. v. Samsung Elecs. Co. blocking Chinese technology company Huawei Technologies, Co. (“Huawei”) from enforcing an injunction issued by the Intermediate People’s Court of Shenzhen (“Shenzhen Court”) that would have forced Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”) to shut down many of its operations in China. Read more

Jonathan K. LevinePritzker Levine LLP On April 3, 2018, Northern District of California District Court Judge James Donato dismissed a putative class action asserting privacy claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 Ill. Comp. Stat. 14/1 et seq. (“BIPA”), by collecting plaintiff’s biometric identifiers without notice of consent.Gullen v. Facebook, Inc., Case No. 16-cv-00937-JD, 2018 WL 1609337 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 3, 2018).The factual pattern leading up to Judge Donato’s dismissal order was unique, in that the case was… Read more

Claim and Issue Preclusion In ruling on the cross-motions for summary judgment, Judge Wilken began by rejecting Defendants’ arguments that the Grant-in-Aid Litigation was barred by the doctrines of claim or issue preclusion following the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in O’Bannon.Id. Judge Wilken began her analysis by recognizing that, for either doctrine to apply, the Grant-in-Aid plaintiffs must be the same, or in privity with, the O’Bannon plaintiffs.Id. at *5.Because the Grant-in-Aid plaintiffs consisted of at least two categories of plaintiffs that were not involved in the O’Bannon case—male student-athletes who were recruited… Read more

Bryan WangZelle LLP On April 5, 2018, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama granted partial summary judgment to healthcare provider and consumer plaintiffs in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litigation, ruling that agreements among the Blue Cross Blue Shield entities to allocate markets and limit competition should be reviewed as a per se violation of the Sherman Act.In re Blue Cross Blue Shield Antitrust Litig., MDL No. 2406, Case No. 2:13-CV-20000-RDP, 2018 WL 1640023 (N.D. Ala. Apr.… Read more

Daniel Macioce, InternFederal Trade Commission In an action for false advertising brought under California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL) and Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA), Northern District of California District Court Judge John Tigar partially denied defendant 21st Amendment Brewery Café’s (21st Amendment) motion to dismiss.  Peacock v. 21st Amendment Brewery Café, No. 17-cv-01918-JST, 2018 WL 452153, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 17, 2018).  The decision involves a putative class action alleging that 21st Amendment’s website and on product labels, which feature a… Read more