Italian consumer rights group Codacons has filed class action lawsuits against Italy’s two largest banks – Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP.MI) and UniCredit SpA (UCG.MI) – for banking fees paid by more than 25 million customers.

The cases are the first to be brought under a new law permitting class action suits in Italian courts, and could force the two banks to pay up to 6.25 billion Euros (approximately nine billion dollars) to their customers.

In December 2009, an antitrust regulator ruled that the Italian banks charged higher fees on loans and credit lines to recover part of the overdraft fees canceled by the government in July.  In some cases the bank overdraft fees were 15 times higher than under the old system which was abolished with the aim of lowering charges.

The 25 million customers of Intesa and UniCredit who paid the banking fees can file a request for reimbursement of 250 Euros each, resulting in an overall total of 6.25 billion Euros.

The new law, effective as of January 1, 2010, allows collective lawsuits against any unfair commercial practice from August 16, 2009 onward.  However, unlike in the United States, the Italian law only allows for compensation to victims, not punitive damages against companies. click here for more »

The DOJ’s Antitrust Division has sent the European Commission a holiday greeting that appears designed to mollify the EC after a DOJ statement last month that the EC viewed as a lump of coal in its Christmas stocking.

“The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division commends the efforts of the European Commission …”  These were the opening words of a surprising statement issued by Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varney on December 16.  

Ms. Varney was saluting the settlement agreement reached by Microsoft and the Commission in the internet browser tying case.  Microsoft was alleged to have abused its dominant position in the market for PC operating systems by tying its Internet Explorer browser to its Windows operating system.  In settling, Microsoft agreed to a five-year commitment to offer Windows users a ‘browser Choice Screen’ where they can choose to install one or more of the 12 most popular web browsers.    click here for more »

If coffee executives can’t sleep at night, it isn’t the coffee, it’s the antitrust issues.

Coffee companies around the world are working through the holiday season, contending with merger issues in the U.S. and price fixing in Europe.

In the U.S., Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. has voluntarily withdrawn its filing with the FTC regarding its purchase of Diedrich Coffee Inc. after consultation with the antitrust regulators.  Green Mountain has stated it withdrew the filing to give the FTC more time to review the merger, and will refile the report on or before Tuesday.

Green Mountain – the manufacturer of Keurig coffeemakers – announced earlier this month that it had beaten Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. in a bidding contest for the purchase of Diedrich, the maker of K-cups –single-serve containers used in the Keurig coffeemakers.

In dropping out of the bidding for Diedrich, Peet’s charged that there were significant antitrust issues with Green Mountain’s successful bid.

click here for more »

Last month, the British Columbia Court of Appeal, in Pro-Sys Consultants Ltd. v Infineon Technologies AG, granted an appeal and certified a class of combined direct and indirect purchasers of “DRAMs” (semiconductor memory chips also known as “dynamic random access memory”) in class proceedings against DRAM manufacturers.  This appellate court decision is the second significant antitrust class certification decision coming from Canadian courts in recent months.  Click here for a related post.

The class proceedings at issue were brought by the purchaser of a laptop computer containing DRAMs who alleged that the manufacturers controlled the vast majority of the market for DRAM in British Columbia, they engaged in an international cartel to fix prices of DRAM during the class period, and that, as a result, it paid more for the computer than it would have but for the illegal price-fixing.  The action was brought on behalf of all persons in British Columbia who, during the class period, purchased DRAM or products containing DRAM either directly from the manufacturers or indirectly from intermediate purchasers.  The manufacturers had pleaded guilty in the United States of America to criminal charges arising out of an international conspiracy to fix prices of DRAM during the period April 1, 1999 to June 30, 2002 (the “class period”).  They had paid agreed-upon fines totaling $731 million (USD) and a number of their executive officers paid fines and served prison terms for their related criminal conduct. click here for more »

Thomson Reuters is in the news, but probably not for a reason it’s happy about.  The European Commission has opened formal antitrust proceedings against the news and financial data giant concerning a potential infringement of EC Treaty rules on abuse of a dominant market position related to the company’s coding of its real-time market data feeds. 

Specifically, the EC will investigate whether customers or competitors are prevented from “mapping” Reuters Instrument Codes (“RICs”) to alternative identification codes of other data feed suppliers to the detriment of competition.  RICs are short alphanumerical codes that are used to retrieve information about securities from Thomson Reuters’ real-time data feeds.  A subscriber to the Thomson Reuters real-time market datafeed is not permitted to use the RICs alongside a feed from another service provider.  According to the EC, Thomson Reuters has three rivals in this area and none of them have this restriction.

EC officials identified the potential antitrust abuse when they reviewed Thomson’s merger with Reuters last year, but did not act then because it was not relevant to the merger review, which only examined how a newer larger firm would affect competition.  This suggests companies subject to merger reviews by antitrust authorities should be on guard for issues that could be of concern to those authorities, even if the issues do not rise to a level that would endanger the merger itself.

Russia’s head antitrust agency, the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (“FAS”), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with the United States Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to promote greater cooperation between the two governments on antitrust issues.

FAS Head Igor Artemyev, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, and Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varney signed the MOU in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

The MOU provides that the two countries will inform each other of basic activities of the two antitrust agencies, exchange their views on options for development of bilateral cooperation in competition enforcement, and exchange materials on their areas of authority and expertise.  Chairman Leibowitz stated with regard to the agreement between the two countries, “We are delighted to enter into this antitrust Memorandum of Understanding with the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service.  It will enable us to enhance our cooperation, provide a framework for technical cooperation, and facilitate consultation on policy and enforcement matters with our counterpart in this important jurisdiction.” click here for more »

The outlook for Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems is only partly cloudy now that federal antitrust enforcers have announced that they will not be joining their European counterparts in opposing the acquisition.

The Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice issued a statement on November 9, 2009, concluding that Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun is unlikely to be anticompetitive.  This announcement came on the heels of the European Commission’s objection to the proposed $7.4 billion transaction.

After an investigation that included gathering statements from a number of industry participants and reviewing Oracle’s and Sun’s internal business documents, the DOJ based its determination on a number of factors.

For example, the DOJ concluded that there are many open-source and proprietary database competitors who offer consumers a variety of well established and widely accepted data products, and thus the proposed acquisition would be unlikely to harm consumers.  The DOJ also determined that there exists a large community of developers and users of Sun’s open source database with significant expertise in maintaining and improving the software, and who could support a derivative version of it.

Still, Oracle must find a way to convince the European Commission that the proposed transaction is not anticompetitive.  Oracle has expressed confidence that it can do so.  The company stated that “[g]iven the lack of any credible theory or evidence of competitive harm, we are confident we will ultimately obtain unconditional clearance of the transaction.”

 Two recent antitrust cases in China indicate that country may be inching its way toward fulfilling its potential as a modern economy by embracing competition law.

It was only in August 2008 that the world’s third largest economy joined the ranks of countries with private competition law regimes with China’s adoption of its new Anti-Monopoly Law (AML).

The AML generally resembles the basic framework of the American and European antitrust regimes, in the sense that it sets forth broad guidelines for dominant-firm conduct, collusion and mergers and acquisitions.  And it allows private parties – not just the government – to enforce the law through lawsuits.  Recent outcomes in two such cases suggest that private litigation under the AML will be robust, giving Chinese lawyers no shortage of work.

The Shanda-Sursen case, decided on October 23, 2009, produced the first court decision interpreting the AML’s dominant-firm provisions. click here for more »

Merck’s acquisition of Schering-Plough is plowing ahead as the companies addresses competitive concerns raised by antitrust enforcers.

 In an October 29, 2009, Consent Order, the FTC is permitting the acquisition – which would result in the one of the world’s largest prescription drug companies – to go forward provided the two companies divest of certain assets.  The European Union granted a smooth approval to the companies’ merger just a week earlier.

 The divestitures required by the FTC are already well underway.  As discussed in an earlier post, the anticipation and remedying of potential objections by regulators has allowed the Merck and Schering-Plough deal to progress.  In addition to the EU, Canadian and Swiss antitrust authorities have also given the green-light for this acquisition to continue.  The transaction still needs to obtain approval from other regulators, including Mexico and China before its anticipated close in the fourth quarter of 2009. 

 The main hurdle for FTC clearance was the concern regarding the parties’ animal health operations, but, as discussed earlier, Merck has already taken steps to divest itself of its shares in Merial, its animal health joint venture with Sanofi-Aventis.  This approval signifies that Merck and Schering-Plough have satisfied the issues raised in the FTC’s June 22, 2009, second request.

 The successful merger of the two companies would result in the world’s second largest prescription drug companies – behind only Pfizer, Inc.

British antitrust authorities may be telling CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) that it’s closing time for its complaint charging beer prices have increased due to lack of pub competition, but the consumer group isn’t going home quietly.

CAMRA is asking Lord Mandelson, Britain’s Secretary of State for Business, to refer its complaint to the Competition Commission, following the October 22, 2009, announcement by Britain’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) finding no significant harm to consumers despite slightly higher beer prices.

The consumer group is arguing that British consumers are being harmed by purchasing requirements that are imposed on so-called tied pubs, which are pubs operated by tenants who lease the premises, which are typically owned by a large pub management company or brewer.  The challenged purchasing requirements obligate the pub to buy most or all of its beer from the landlord or a supplier designated by the landlord.

CAMRA filed a complaint with the OFT in July 2009, charging that the pubs’ landlords use the exclusive purchase requirements to force the pubs to buy beer at higher prices than they would pay if they were free to choose their suppliers and buy directly from these suppliers. click here for more »