The U.S. Department of Justice sued to block the merger of two major cinema advertising networks, asserting that cinema advertising is a distinct relevant market to the exclusion of other video advertising. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit revisited and reaffirmed its ruling from earlier this year that a domestic corporation could not assert price-fixing damages claims on behalf of its foreign subsidiaries but deliberately left undisturbed the Department of Justice’s ability to bring enforcement actions against participants in the same price-fixing conspiracy.
A district court decided that the regulatory process through which international airline fares are filed and monitored precluded antitrust attacks on filed airline fares. In other developments of note, the Justice Department announced that it has no current plans to challenge the operation of a cyber-threat discussion and collaboration platform that allows members to share information anonymously. The Federal Trade Commission, meanwhile, settled yet two other matters brought against professional associations in relation to anticompetitive ethical rules in their codes of conduct.
