Judge James Boasberg ruled that Meta does not hold an illegal monopoly in personal social networking, dismissing the FTC’s five-year antitrust case seeking to force divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp despite extensive evidence of Meta’s “buy or bury” strategy to eliminate …
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The Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative antitrust complaint against the three largest pharmacy benefit managers—CVS Caremark, Express Scripts (Cigna), and OptumRx (UnitedHealth)—and their affiliated group purchasing organizations, charging them with anticompetitive and unfair practices …
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The Federal Trade Commission released its interim staff report titled ‘Pharmacy Benefit Managers: The Powerful Middlemen Inflating Drug Costs and Squeezing Main Street Pharmacies,’ revealing alarming market concentration and anticompetitive practices. The report found that three PBMs—CVS …
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, joined by the Business Roundtable, the Texas Association of Business, and the Longview Chamber of Commerce, filed a lawsuit in Tyler, Texas federal court against the FTC and Chair Lina Khan over the commission’s vote to ban noncompete clauses used to block …
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The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice released final 2023 Merger Guidelines on December 18, 2023, representing a major departure from the consumer welfare standard that had guided antitrust enforcement for nearly half a century. The Guidelines signaled a move from the existing …
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission in December 2023, alleging a lack of transparency and accountability under Chairwoman Lina Khan’s leadership. The business group alleged that the FTC had regularly avoided responding to lawful requests for public …
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U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila (N.D. Cal.) denied the Federal Trade Commission’s request for a preliminary injunction to halt Meta’s acquisition of Within Unlimited, a VR fitness app developer, on January 31, 2023. The FTC had sued to block the merger in July 2022, arguing Meta …
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The Federal Trade Commission unanimously voted to authorize a comprehensive investigation into pharmacy benefit manager business practices under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, with all five commissioners voting in favor. The FTC issued compulsory orders to the six largest PBMs—CVS Caremark, Express …
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The U.S. Senate confirmed Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission by a bipartisan vote of 69-28 on June 15, 2021, and President Biden immediately named her chair of the five-member Commission. At 32, Khan became the youngest commissioner ever confirmed to the agency, let alone to lead it. Khan …
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The Federal Trade Commission approved Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market on August 23, 2017, without an in-depth investigation. This decision demonstrated regulatory challenges in addressing 21st-century tech monopolies, as the FTC did not find substantial anticompetitive …