FTC: Watch articles from March 2002

FTC: Watch archives from March 2002

"We have our tricks, too.".(Senate and Federal Trade Commission budget)
March 11, 2002... The FTC and Justice Dept.'s confrontation with the U.S. Senate over a formal agreement to divide antitrust jurisdiction between the two agencies is likely to come to a head on March 19 when FTC Chairman Timothy J. Muris testifies before the...

Physicians' antitrust exemption bill returns.(Quality Health-Care Coalition Act of 2000)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.) and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.) have teamed up to introduce "The Health Care Antitrust Improvements Act of 2002" (H.R. 3897) to grant independent health care providers an...

Senior drug card proposal is back.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The National Community Pharmacist Association (NCPA) and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 8 to enforce its September 11 preliminary injunction (PI) against...

Consumers Union, DBS providers prefer regulation over Sect. 7 suit.(direct broadcast by satellite)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... "[W]hile antitrust is an excellent tool to prevent monopolization or substantial dilution of competition, it may do nothing to create new competition or explode existing monopolies." Consumers Union Co-Director Gene Kimmelman "A very...

Tauzin-Dingell bill passes House with antitrust amendments.(Internet Freedom and Broadband)(Development Act)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The U.S. House of Representatives voted 273-157 to approve the Internet Freedom and Broadband Development Act (H.R. 1542), better known as the "Tauzin-Dingell bill," on February 27, sending it on to the Senate Commerce Committee where it faces...

Antitrust disgorgement public comment period extended.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... You now have until March 29 to submit comments on the FTC's review of its use of its disgorgement remedies for redressing violations of the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act, the FTC Act, and the Clayton Act. The original deadline was March 1, but...

FTC proposes amending Telemarketing Rule to implement do-not-call registry.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The Commission proposes amending the FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to implement the proposed do-not-call registry by establishing a new agency system of records that is subject to the 1974 Privacy Act. If adopted, the proposed records...

Industry guides overhaul continues 2 up for review, 1 rescinded, 2 retained.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The FTC has abandoned its 1973 Guides for the Household Furniture Industry, deeming them outdated. The guides provided guidance for industry members who make, sell, distribute, label and advertise household furniture products. The...

Resale price maintenance? Interbrand competition? Sports league TV sales?(European Commissioner for Competition,)(Mario Monti)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... European Commissioner for Competition Policy Mario Monti simply may have missed all of the University of Chicago courses required to comprehend the "new economics." He thinks that consumers benefit when, for example, resellers of the same...

Microsoft: the settlement.(Brief Article)(Column)
March 11, 2002... The Antitrust Division has radically revised the purported numbers of true believers in its Revised Proposed Final Judgment (RPFJ) with Microsoft. Why is that? Don't know; they have declined to tell us. In the February 7 Joint Status...

Tunney Act filings.(antitrust)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... On February 27, the Antitrust Division filed: * A red-lined version of the Second Revised Proposed Final Judgment (SRPFJ) (18 pages); * Stipulation (18 pages); * Memorandum regarding modifications contained in SRPFJ (13 pages); ...

Merger watch.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Merger watch: The FTC continues its investigation of Solvay Group's proposed acquisition of Ausimont, both of which manufacture and distribute fluorochemicals. [FTC:WATCH No. 582, February 11, 2002] The European Commission closed its...

Online privacy for beginners.
March 11, 2002... Online privacy for beginners: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Privacy Leadership Initiative have released a business guide, "Privacy Made Simple," to help small and medium sized businesses manage online privacy. The handbook includes an...

Wireless Workshop Summary.
March 11, 2002... Wireless Workshop Summary: The FTC staff summary for the agency's December 2000 two day workshop, "The Mobile Wireless Web, Data Services and Beyond: Emerging Technologies and Consumer Issues," is now available. The Workshop covered five...

Identity theft.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 11, 2002... Identity theft: A February General Accounting Office report estimates that "from one-quarter to three-quarters of a million" people are victimized by identity theft in the U.S. each year. And, individual ID theft complaints to the FTC's...

Why we love Microsoft.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Why we love Microsoft: Several years ago, some bright entrepreneurs created a free spot on the Internet where people could set up e-mail addresses accessible by browser from any place with an Internet connection. They called it 'Hotmail." ...

Gotta love AOL/Time Warner, too.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Gotta love AOL/Time Warner, too: When Netscape was driven from the market by competition from a free browser, it was acquired by America Online. When America Online bought Time Warner, Netscape's Navigator browser became one of the...

And then he said ...(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... And then he said...: "For Bill Gates, the game exists in the present and in the future and nothing in the past even matters. This is where the lawyers on all sides just don't get it. They look back at poor Netscape getting clobbered and think...

Offshore gelatin merger restructured.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The parties have restructured Germany's Deutsche Gelatine-Fabriken Stoess AG's (DGF Stoess) proposed $170 million acquisition of Australia's Goodman Fielder subsidiary Leiner Davis Gelatin Corp. to win FTC approval. DGF Stoess agreed not to...

Hewlett-Packard/Compaq deal clears FTC hurdle.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The FTC Commission has voted 5-0 not to challenge the proposed merger between Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Compaq Computer Corp. The FTC Office notified HP's and Compaq's counsel of the decision on March 6 that it had investigated whether the...

Federal court asked to enjoin allegedly illegal foreign lottery scheme.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Another alleged cross-border telemarketing scheme targeting senior U.S. citizens is the target of an FTC request to a U.S. District court to: (a) issue a preliminary and permanent injunction; (b) order the defendants to disclose all foreign...

Dubious bioterrorism defense products One FTC order effective immediately.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The FTC 's war on bogus bioterrorism-related products following the September 11 tragedy has produced the first two relevant enforcement settlements. Of those orders, one became effective immediately because the Commission deemed the wildly...

Get into Harvard with Wonder Bread.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Interstate Bakeries Corp. and its ad agency, Campbell Mithun LLC have agreed to be more circumspect about their health benefit claims to settle FTC charges that they did not substantiate some ad claims for Wonder Bread. One ad featured a...

Palm agrees to show more of its digital hand in future ads.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Palm, Inc., the leading maker of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), will clearly and conspicuously disclose when consumers have to buy add-ons in order to perform advertised functions -- such as buying a modem to access e-mail or the Internet...

Five AOL/TW cable agreements OK.(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... The Commission has approved five applications from America Online/Time Warner, Inc. (AOL/ TW) requesting FTC approval for non-affiliated Internet Service Provider (ISP) and alternative cable broadband service agreements as required under the...

Calendar.
March 11, 2002... March 13 - FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle will discuss consumer protection and competition issues at a breakfast meeting of the Baltimore Service Academies Business Professionals; Pikesville Hilton, 1726 Reisterstown Road, Pikesville, Maryland;...

Antitrust Chiefs - Offices of the State attorneys general.(Directory)
March 11, 2002... Alabama Ellen Leonard Chief, Consumer Protection Office of the Attorney General of Alabama State House 11 S. Union Street Montgomery, AL 36130 Tel: 334-242-7333 Fax: 334-242-2433 E-mail: eleonard@ago.state.al.us Alaska...

Hollings challenges antitrust jurisdiction agreement Thompson alleges "deception".
March 25, 2002... This is getting serious, both on Capitol Hill and within the FTC. Senator Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) is considering a range of drastic options such as salary cuts and/or elimination of some political appointee positions to induce the FTC and...

Coming to a city near you: Informal merger review workshops.(Federal Trade Commission news)
March 25, 2002... The FTC will sponsor a round of "brown bag" lunch workshops in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C. for corporate personnel, outside and in-house attorneys, economists and consumer groups to propose and discuss the...

Out-licensing agreements count : Pharmaceutical and device merger review criteria.
March 25, 2002... FTC investigators treat mergers in the pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device industries like any other industry, starting with horizontal analysis and looking for potential competitive overlaps, FTC Senior Staff Attorney Jacqueline K....

Proposed HSR Rules amended.
March 25, 2002... Transitional filers, foreign acquisition exemptions, agricultural exemptions The Commission has finalized several rules concerning premerger notification, reporting, and waiting period requirements under the 1976 Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR)...

FTC staff advisory opinion: Non-Profit Institutions Act covers vaccine buys.
March 25, 2002... Viquest can buy vaccines from parent company Pitt County Memorial Hospital (PCMH) without fear of violating the Robinson-Patman Act. That's because the Non-Profit Institutions Act (NPIA) covers the transaction, FTC staff advised counsel for...

Computer information security workshop.
March 25, 2002... How secure are personal computers and the personal information stored in them or in company databases? Are consumers reluctant to buy online because of security risks for sensitive information? These are some of the questions to be explored...

Anyone know how to run a Do Not Call registry?
March 25, 2002... More than 19,000 consumers and parties have submitted public comments regarding the FTC's proposed national "do-not-call" registry to opt out of annoying telemarketing calls. Now the Commission is specifically soliciting information to...

FTC testifies on identity theft.
March 25, 2002... The FTC's identity theft program is a critical part of its new privacy initiative, Consumer Protection Bureau Chief J. Howard Beales testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government...

AAI calls Orbitz's service fee price-fixing; Role reversal: JV asked FTC to pickle AOLTW.
March 25, 2002... Online air ticket sales joint venture Orbitz's new $5 service fee per transaction is a form of price-fixing, American Antitrust Institute President Bert Foer opined in a letter to Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust R. Hewitt Pate....

JV to track utility consumers credit histories; Review crosses FTC and DOJ jurisdiction areas.(Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... The Antitrust Division has advised that it finds no insurmountable antitrust concerns with the National Consumer Telecommunications Data Exchange's (NCTDE) proposal to expand its services from providing telecom carriers with customers' credit...

French exec behind U.S. bars for chemical price-fixing.
March 25, 2002... An international French-based chemical conglomerate agreed to plead guilty and pay $8.5 million in fines after the Justice Dept. charged that it conspired to fix prices and allocate market shares for monochloroacetic acid (MCAA) in the U.S. and...

Grand jury indicts Japanese firm for obstructing cartel investigation.(Toho Tenax Company Ltd.)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... A federal grand jury in Los Angeles agreed with the Antitrust Division that a Japanese carbon fiber company, its American subsidiary and a Japanese executive obstructed justice during an investigation of carbon fiber price-fixing. The one...

EU leniency program expected to further boost cartel amnesty momentum.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Recent changes strengthening the European Commission's (EC) leniency program for cartel informants represent the most important change for U.S. anti-cartel enforcement efforts over the past few years, Antitrust Division Criminal Enforcement...

BellSouth wins DOJ endorsement for LD in Georgia and Louisiana.(long distance)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... BellSouth has made sufficient improvements in its operations support system ("OSS") and commercial performance data reliability that the Federal Communications Commission should approve its application for permission to offer long distance...

Perspectives on international merger control.
March 25, 2002... More than ninety countries now have antitrust laws and sixty of them have "some form" of merger notification. But while "rigorous enforcement of antitrust laws is essential in preserving and extending the gains" won for national economies that...

Standard-setting disputes: the Need for FTC Guidelines.
March 25, 2002... The FTC is reportedly conducting several investigations into disputes involving the non-disclosure of patents or patent applications to industry standard-setting groups. This problem is also being explored in the FTC/DOJ hearings on...

Comment on the Balto/Prywes proposal.
March 25, 2002... No segment of the standard-setting community should applaud the Balto/Prywes Guidelines Proposal more vociferously than the estabished standard-setting organizations that all too often react to fresh thinking with canned defenses of the status...

Merger watch.
March 25, 2002... Merger watch: Phillips/Conoco - Phillips Petroleum Co. shareholders voted to approve a proposed merger with Conoco on March 12. However, the deal still needs to survive an FTC second request, and we understand that negotiations in that...

Amgen/Immunex.
March 25, 2002... Amgen/Immunex - This deal presents what one FTC source describes as "interesting issues." Among the problematic products, leukine is used to boost white blood cells in people getting chemotherapy. We believe that the parties are likely to...

Comcast/AT&T.(proposed merger to be heard by)(Senate Antitrust Subcommittee)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Comcast/AT&T - The Senate Antitrust Subcommittee's hearing on the proposed $72 billion Comcast/ AT&T deal will take place on April 23 rather than on April 10 as previously reported. The CEOs of both companies will testify. The parties announced...

Boston Scientific update. (lawsuit regarding intravascular ultrasound catheter market).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Boston Scientific update: On September 28, 2001, U.S. district court entered summary judgment for the FTC and the Justice Dept. in a case alleging that Boston Scientific Corp. has violated an FTC consent order designed to ensure competition in...

Advertising - another COPPA referral. (Island Defjam's web site, Children's Online Privacy Protection Act).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Advertising - another COPPA referral: The Children's Advertising Review Unit has sent its files on Island Defjam's website to the FTC because the site's representatives declined to cooperate with CARU's voluntary system and modify their website...

Microsoft stuff.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Microsoft stuff: "If Microsoft made cars instead of computer programs, product-liability suits might by now have driven it out of business," says an editorial in the March 14th issue of The Economist calling for software "lemon law." ...

Aventis order modified: no more divestitures needed.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... The Commission modified its order with Aventis, SA (formerly Hoechst AG, et al.) so that Aventis now has no further divestiture obligations under the order. The original FTC order had required Aventis to divest its newly developed...

Ask not what Uncle SPAM can do for you.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Obliging the FTC, a U. S. District Court pulled the plug on an operation that allegedly relied on post September 11 patriotic fervor to sell non-functioning Web addresses with bogus domain names such as ".usa" and ".brit." The court further...

Telemarketers down $39 million for violating 1996 FTC order.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma ordered a magazine subscription telemarketing group to hand over $39 million for consumer redress, after finding that it had violated a 1996 FTC order enjoining a number of deceptive...

FTC amends 1997 MOU, expands redress uses.(Federal Trade Commission, U.S.)(Memorandum of Understanding)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... The Commission approved an amended Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Mohave County (Arizona) Attorney that expands the uses for the remaining $580,000 redress money created by a 1997 FTC/Mohave County MOU to include spending on...

Diageo to divest Malibu rum to Allied Domecq.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Diageo PLC (Diageo) applied for FTC approval to divest the "Malibu Rum Assets" to Allied Domecq, as required by the December 19 consent decree resolving concerns around Diageo and Pernod Richard S.A. acquiring Vivendi Universal S.A's Seagram...

ChevronTexaco Corp divestitures.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... 1. ChevronTexaco Corp. asked the FTC to approve the company divesting its interest in the Discovery Natural Gas System to Duke Energy Field Services LP. FTC approval is required under a September 7, 2001 merger order. Send comments to the...

Liberty seeks exit from Time Warner order.(Liberty Media Corp. U.S.)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Liberty Media Corporation asked the FTC to dismiss Liberty as a respondent in its the final order with Time Warner, Inc., et al. Liberty split off from Tele-Communications, Inc.'s successor AT&T Corp. on August 10, 2001, and is now a...

Calendar.
March 25, 2002... March 27 - J. Howard Beales, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, will participate as a panelist at a Policy Forum, "The Spam Wars: What Can Be Done About The Annoying, Unsolicited E-mail This Is Driving Us Crazy?" Sponsored by...