Top 10 Anti-trust/Competition Headlines from North America On September 29, 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the Colorado District Court’s holding that a hospital has no antitrust duty to share its facilities, and thereby affirmed the grant of summary judgment for the hospital against a complaining physician. Two years ago the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the longstanding per se rule against minimum resale price maintenance (RPM) agreements. Key legislative changes to the Investment Canada Act (ICA)1 were recently introduced by Parliament pursuant to the "Budget Implementation Act" (Bill C-10).2 The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed on October 2 the dismissal of a price-fixing conspiracy complaint brought by approximately 85 travel agents against virtually all the major U.S. airlines, as well as several smaller airlines. Canada's federal telecommunications regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC or Commission), has recently released the stunning decision that Globalive Wireless Management Corporation (Globalive) is not currently eligible to operate as a telecommunications common carrier (TCC). On September 18, 2009, following a consultation and comment period, the Competition Bureau issued its final Merger Review Process Guidelines, which explain the Bureau's approach to administering Canada's new, two-stage merger review process. Last week the Federal Trade Commission ruled that a Michigan realtors' group violated federal antitrust law by limiting the publication of certain types of real estate listings within its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and publicly accessible real estate web sites. Reversing a 2007 ruling by an Administrative Law Judge, on November 2 the FTC ordered the group, Realcomp II Ltd. (Realcomp), to amend its publication policies to avoid discriminating against listings by brokers employing lower-pr On September 21, 2009, the Competition Bureau released its Enforcement Guidelines on Consumer Rebate Promotions. On 6 October 2009, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its judgment in the long-running wrangle regarding the legality of GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) dual pricing arrangements with Spanish pharmaceutical wholesalers. |