Antitrust in the News

On July 30, 2020, Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler of the Northern District of California certified a class of indirect purchasers seeking damages for Sutter Health’s alleged violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Cartwright Act, and the California Unfair Competition Law. Sidibe v. Sutter Health, No. 12-cv-04854-LB, 2020 WL 4368221 (N.D. Cal. Jul. 30, 2020) (“Sidibe II”). Read more

The recent decision out of the Northern District of California in Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc., Case No. 20-cv-5640, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154321 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 24, 2020), sheds light on the standard for granting preliminary injunctive relief in antitrust cases. In an August 24, 2020 order, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted in part and denied in part Epic Games, Inc.’s (“Epic”) motion for a temporary restraining order against Apple Inc. (“Apple”). Read more

As many anticipated, the Ninth Circuit reversed Judge Koh’s ruling that Qualcomm, Inc. had an antitrust duty to deal with its rival chip makers. The panel criticized Judge Koh for focusing on harm to downstream original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers rather than on actual anticompetitive effects in the purportedly restrained chip market and rejected Judge Koh’s reliance on the smallest saleable unit test underlying her conclusion that Qualcomm’s royalty rates were unreasonably high. Read more

This Supreme Court of California case addressed the legal standards that applied when Biogen, Inc. (Biogen) settled a patent dispute with Ixchel related to the use of a compound (DMF) dimethyl fumerate that required Ixchel to terminate an at-will contract it had with Forward Pharma (Forward) under which Ixchel Pharma (Ixchel) and Forward were working together to develop a drug using DMF. Read more

In a Pretrial Order No. 105 (“PTO”) district court Judge Cynthia M. Rufe, ordered that the defendant companies produce responsive documents from agreed upon custodian with agreed upon search terms without regard for the relevance or responsiveness of the document. Read more

Back in the last days before stay-at-home orders—when news of the novel coronavirus had not been so consuming—the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued its decision in Marion Healthcare, LLC v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 952 F.3d 832 (7th Cir. 2020). Read more

In June 2018 the Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lost their challenge to the AT&T/Time Warner. The AT&T/Time Warner case was the first vertical merger case litigated by the Antitrust Division or Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in almost 40 years. This was a vertical merger as Time Warner was a leading holder of video content and AT&T was a significant distributor of the same. Read more

In a May 1, 2020 order, Chief Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero denied Uber’s motion to dismiss a monopolization complaint filed by Sidecar, a defunct ride-hailing company that claims it was driven out of business by Uber’s alleged anticompetitive practices in the ride-hailing market. The case is SC Innovations, Inc. v. Uber Technologies, Inc., No. 18-cv-07440-JCS, 2020 WL 2097611 (N.D. Cal., May 1, 2020). Read more

By enacting statutory provisions governing the distribution and sale of fine wines and spirits, Connecticut created a ferment among vintners operating in the state. The resulting distaste prompted one vintner, Connecticut Fine Wines and Spirits, d/b/a Total Wine & More (“Total Wine”), to file suit against the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection and the Director of the Connecticut Division of Liquor Control (collectively, “Defendants”). Conn. Fine Wine & Spirits, LLC v. Seagull, 932 F.3d 22 (2d Cir. 2019). Read more

On September 3, 2019, Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Northern District of California granted in large part the motions to dismiss filed by Defendants Micron, Samsung, and Hynix in a putative class action brought by indirect purchasers of Dynamic Random Access Memory (“DRAM”). Jones v. Micron Tech. Inc., 400 F. Supp. 3d 897, 904 (N.D. Cal. 2019). Read more