When there is a choice between settlement and litigation, most would agree that a negotiated settlement is in everyone’s best interest. However, when two or more competitors reach an agreement, the logical question would be whether the agreement is in the public’s best interest. Congress institu...
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In recent years, international trade and investment have significantly expanded. At the same time, national governments have broadened their regulation of international economic activity. Traditionally, states confined their regulation of economic activity to conduct occurring within national territ...
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In May of 2007, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly that literally revolutionized the standard for determining the legal sufficiency of a complaint. In that decision, which Justice Souter wrote for the majority, the Court abandoned the fifty-year...
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“Designer blue jeans. PING® custom-fit golf clubs. Brietling watches. Producers of these and other high-end consumer goods have at one time or another tried to insist that retailers adhere to minimum resale prices in order to preserve their images in the marketplace. For 96 years, those manufactu...
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After decades of volatile treatment, patent pools have gained traction with U.S. antitrust enforcement agencies. In 1995, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published guidelines that identified numerous procompetitive benefits of intellectual property ...
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This comment examines the proposed merger agreement between Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (Sirius) and XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (XM). It begins by examining the origin of satellite radio and the current state of Sirius and XM. It proceeds by taking an in-depth look at the Federal C...
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The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) has a dual mandate: to prevent anticompetitive business practices, and to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices. The Commission’s mandates are not mutually exclusive. As former Commissioner Leary explained, ...
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This note examines the recent United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit decision in In re New Motor Vehicles Canadian Export Antitrust Litigation (Motor Vehicles), specifically the court's treatment of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 (Rule 23) in an antitrust context. It is...
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In an effort to define unilateral conduct that is violative of the Sherman Act, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) held joint hearings to establish guidelines for determining when the conduct creates anticompetitive outcomes. ...
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Class action arbitrations are a relatively recent phenomenon in the United States, but the number of such arbitrations is expanding at a rapid rate. As of August 2008, the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) has administered 246 class action arbitrations and Judicial Arbitration and Mediati...
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