FTC: Watch articles from September 2000

FTC: Watch archives from September 2000

Federated fighting credit investigation.(Federated Department Stores Inc.)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... For more thwart a year, Federated Dept. Stores has been resisting an FTC civil investigative demand for documents from subsidiaries, including a subsidiary that performs credit services for another Federated subsidiary, FDS National Bank ...

FTC to Senate: violence is marketed to kids.(Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... As FTC: WATCH went to press, the Senate Commerce Committee was scheduled to examine the much awaited FTC report on whether and how the motion picture, music recording and electronic game industries market their products to kids on September 13....

Senate bill would close Hatch-Waxman Act loopholes.(pharmaceutical antitrust law)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The Drug Competition Act of 2000 (S.2993) -- designed to correct Hatch Waxman Act abuses by requiring brand-name and generic drug makers to inform federal antitrust authorities of any agreements struck during the 180 day grace period for...

FTC & DOJ to Congress: merger wave remains constant.(Federal Trade Commission)(Department of Justice)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
September 11, 2000... Premerger filings were down from 4,728 in Fiscal Year 1998 to 4,642 in FY 1999 -- so said the FTC and Antitrust Division in their Twenty Second Annual Report to Congress Regarding the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) PremergerNotification Program last...

Boucher asks FTC to leave open access out of AOL/Time Warner merger.(Federal Trade Commission)(Congressman Rick Boucher )(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Congressman Rick Boucher (D-Va.) urged the FTC not to impose open cable access as a merger condition for $130 billion AOL/Time Warner. "It would be a mistake for the FTC to impose open access requirement as a merger requirement for one...

United/US Airways merger flies over hostile political terrain.(United Air Lines Inc.)(USAir Inc.)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) introduced a Senate resolution "expressing strong reservations about the proposed merger of United Airlines and US Airways" at a...

NOPEC at Senate Judiciary; House has its own version.(No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act of 2000)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The Senate Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition Subcommittee has sent the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act of 2000 (NOPEC; S. 2778) co-sponsored by Chairman Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), Ranking Member Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) and Senators...

FTC Financial Privacy Safeguards Rulemaking.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC wants to hear from you on establishing appropriate safeguards standards for financial institutions to protect nonpublic information, as required under the Safeguards Rule (Section 501) of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Privacy Act....

Swindle: give self reg a chance -- FTC backs network advertisers' online profiling self reg program.(Commissioner Orson Swindle)(Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Following a year of nonpublic negotiations between network advertisers and the federal government, the FTC and Clinton Administration have decided to back the Network Advertising Initiative's (NAT) self-regulatory principles for Online...

FTC endorses stronger subprime lending consumer protections.(Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC supports the Federal Reserve System's Board of Governors' (the Board) efforts to expand the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) protections to increase consumer protections against predatory subprime lending, FTC Financial...

FTC staff approve Pharmacy Network.(Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... FTC staff OK'ed Northeast's October 1999 draft business plan to establish a network of independent pharmacies in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Northeast plans to market a range of drug treatment and patient education services provided by...

FTC drops "affirmative need" for reopening old orders.(Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The Commission has amended the Rule of Practice governing requests to reopen FTC decisions -- by scrapping the term "affirmative need" from public interest thresholds. The Commission earlier maintained in a 1983 letter ruling that parties must...

October 23-24 Identity theft victim assistance workshop.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The number of calls to the FTC's Identity Theft hotline has tripled in the past six months, FTC Western Regional Office Director Jeffrey Klurfeld testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee/ Technology, Terrorism and Government Information...

Daewoo wants Franchise Rule exemption.(Daewoo Motor America Inc.)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Daewoo Motor America, Inc. has asked for an exemption from the FTC's Franchising and Business Opportunities Rule, arguing that applicants for new Daewoo dealerships are too sophisticated and experienced to benefit from the Rule. Send comments...

Esprit de Corps wins Care Rule exemption.(Esprit de Corp.)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC has granted Esprit de Corps a partial exemption for three specific styles of apron camisoles from the Care Labeling Rule -- that requires textile and clothing manufacturers and importers to attach permanent care labels stating "what...

FTC to online business: disclose the details.(Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC has warned businesses to disclose the full details in ads for "free" or low-cost computers via a July 31 Internet press release. FTC Consumer and Business Education official Randy Satterfield said that the FTC is increasingly using...

FTC report on global e-markets.(Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Pursue partial convergence of consumer protection laws, a FTC report "Consumer Protection in the Global Electronic Marketplace: Looking Ahead," advises governments, businesses and consumer groups in follow-up to joint FTC/ Commerce Dept....

California Dental Assn. : 9th Circuit says no double bites.(unfair competition)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Finding on remand from the Supreme Court that the FTC had not introduced sufficient evidence to sustain a role-of-reason case that the California Dental Association's advertising restrictions are anticompetitive, a 3-judge panel of the Ninth...

Short leap from Toys-R-Us to Heinz-Beechnut.(antitrust law)
September 11, 2000... Sixty-four years after Huey Long declared that he "would rather have thieves and gangsters than chain stores in Louisiana," our antitrust policymakers should be newly energized to address abuses of retail chain buying power as a result of the...

FTC asks court to note its investigation of two drug firms.(Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC has asked the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, Western Division to delay acceptance of a consent agreement between two drug firms, partly because the proposed settlement may be anticompetitive and partly because the...

In Canada, an efficiencies defense saves a merger to monopoly.(ICG Propane Inc. and Superior Propane Inc.)
September 11, 2000... On August 30, 2000 the Canadian Competition Tribunal dismissed the Competition Commissioner's case against the merger of ICG Propane Inc. and Superior Propane Inc., first merger decision to be decided on the basis of the efficiency defense in...

Merger Watch.(Novartis' acquisition of Wesley Jessen, and Thomson's acquisition of Primark)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Merger Watch: The FTC's investigation of Novartis' acquisition of Wesley Jessen Visioncare is more likely than not to be closed without action, according to our sources. On June 30, Novartis announced that it was the proud recipient of one of...

Electricity.(antitrust and energy experts participate in Roundtable discussion)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Electricity: Forty antitrust and energy experts from the FTC, Justice Dept., FERC, several state governments, the public interest community, and the private sector participated in an American Antitrust Institute Roundtable on Electricity and...

If only cars ran on cranberry juice.(growers ordered to cut production by 15%, OPEC countries antitrust immunity)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... If only cars ran on cranberry juice... With the price of cranberries falling through the floor, the Agriculture Dept. has ordered growers in 10 states to cut production by 15 percent. Meanwhile, as reported in FTC: WATCH No. 549, the Senate...

Mylan settlement - ouch!(Mylan settles monopoly case with FTC)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Mylan settlement - ouch! Mylan Laboratories' says that its settlement with the FTC and 33 State Attorneys General of allegations that it monopolized the market for the supply of the raw materials necessary to produce lorazepam and clorazepate,...

Mergers and acquisitions.(L'Oreal S.A. and Carson Inc. merger satisfies antitrust concerns)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... L'Oreal S.A. and Carson, Inc. agreed to divest Carson's hair care assets to satisfy the Antitrust Division's objection to their merger. Hair care assets include, "tangible assets used primarily in the research, development, marketing, servicing...

Ingersoll-Dresser Pump Co.(Ingersoll and Flowserve to divest plants, pump lines, and facilities)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Ingersoll-Dresser Pump Co., Ingersoll-Rand Co., and Flowserve Corp. will divest plants, pump lines, and repair facilities to satisfy the Division's objection to Flowserve's acquisition of Ingersoll Dresser Pump Co. Specifically,...

Allied Waste Industries Inc.(Allied Waste abandons Waste Management purchase)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Allied Waste Industries Inc. has abandoned its $36.6 million purchase of Waste Management Inc.'s waste collection and disposal assets in Mississippi and Ohio to resolve Justice Dept. antitrust concerns, thus cheating the way for Allied to...

NBT Bancorp/BSB Bancorp merger proceeds with divestiture.(BSB branch sale in Norwich, New York)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... NBT Bancorp Inc. and BSB Bancorp Inc. have agreed to sell BSB's Norwich, N.Y. branch to resolve antitrust concerns about their merger. The Department said the deal, as originally proposed, would have reduced competition for banking services in...

Clear Channel/AMFM merger clears with divestitures.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Clear Channel Communications Inc. and AMFM Inc. will sell AMFM's partial ownership interest in Lamar Advertising Company in order to proceed with their proposed $23.8 billion merger. The Antitrust Division says that the proposed deal would have...

SBC and BellSouth divest wireless businesses in 16 markets.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp -- two of the remaining four Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) created in the 1984 American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) settlement-will sell wireless businesses in 16 markets, in order to...

Alaskan Pollock allocation agreement approved in Business review Letters.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... A series of 6 Business Review Letters issued on July 9, approves a fishermen's scheme to divide up the Alaskan Pollock market, a market that the federal government itself has awarded them. Under a conservation policy administered by the...

Justice Dept. modifies ASCAP decree.(American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The Justice Dept. and American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) -- who currently licenses 50% of all U.S. musical performances -- agreed to modify a 1941 consent decree that requires ASCAP to provide performance rights...

Bid-rigging & price-fixing : German company caught bid rigging USAID building projects in Egypt.(Philipp Holzmann AG)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... A German construction company will pay a $30 million fine after pleading guilty to rigging bids from June 1988 until January 1995 on wastewater treatment facilities construction contracts in Egypt -- that were funded by the U.S. Agency for...

Japanese executives indicted in price-fixing conspiracy.(Daicel Chemical Industries Ltd.)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Following up on an FTC referral, a federal grand jury has indicted three top executives of Daicel Chemical Industries Ltd., a large Japanese chemical producer, for participating in an international price-fixing conspiracy in the food...

Israeli chemical Co. pleads guilty to price-fixing, customer allocation charges.(Dead Sea Bromine Company Ltd.)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The Israeli chemical company, Dead Sea Bromine Company Ltd., will admit guik and donate $7 to the U.S. budget surplus for participating in a price-fixing conspiracy to suppress and eliminate competition in connection with the sale of certain...

Antitrust investigation produces embezzlement, kick-back charges.(Melvyn Merberg)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The Justice Dept. has charged Melvyn Merberg of New York City with participating in a conspiracy to defraud one of his customers of more than $1 million in connection with an embezzlement and kickback scheme. Until recently, Merberg was the...

French executive indicted for bridge projects scheme; Georgia, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio affected.(Freyssinet International)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... A federal grand jury in Boston has indicted an executive of a French construction firm -- Freyssinet International et Cie -- for conspiring to rig bids and allocate contracts for the sale of materials and supplies used in the construction of...

Massachusetts firm charged with bid-rigging tactile tile sales.(AMS Tactile Systems)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The Justice Dept. has charged ADA Fabricators Inc., d/b/a AMS Tactile Systems, with participating in a conspiracy to rig bids for the sale of tactile tile to the Long Island Railroad. A one-count felony charge filed in U.S. District Court...

New divestiture order, trustee for Aventis.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Aventis (merged entity of Rhone-Poulenc's acquisition of Hoechst) did not comply with it's divestiture order requirement that it divest its newly developed anti-coagulant drug Revasc within six months of the order being made final [FTC: WATCH...

Conso/McCall call off wedding following FTC objections.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Conso International Corp. withdrew their Hart Scott Rodino merger filing for its proposed $22 million acquisition of McCall Pattern Company on August 29 -- one month after the FTC filed a preliminary injunction to block the merger because the...

Hannaford divests 37 stores to hook up with Delhaize.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Hannaford Bros. Co. sold 37 supermarkets and one Hannaford site in Virginia and North Carolina to three different FTC-approved up-front buyers to win the FTC's approval for Delhaize's proposed $3.6 billion purchase of all of Hanmford's...

Swindle dissents from privacy provision : FTC spanks 'free' adult web sites for milking credit accounts, wrings $37.5 million from one.(Xpics Publishing, Inc.,)(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... "Free" adult Web sites operators will refund fraudulently billed consumers to settle FTC allegations that they placed unauthorized charges on consumers' credit cards after claiming that they only needed card numbers for age verification...

The FTC won a $37.5 million verdict against an adult Web site operation.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC won a $37.5 million verdict against an adult Web site operation they charged fraudulently billed more than 700,000 consumers for visits to X-rated Internet sites that they hadn't made. A Californian bank sold the defendants access...

Scores of adult web sites including www.playgirl.com, and www.highsociety.com illegally billed thousands of consumers.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Scores of adult web sites including www.playgirl.com, and www.highsociety.com illegally billed thousands of consumers -- the FTC and the New York Attorney General charged in a August 23 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern...

FTC and 19 states hit travel fraud.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC and 19 state law enforcement agencies have brought 85 actions against alleged travel related fraud under a recent sweep to highlight failures to disclose the real costs of travel packages and misleading 'free trip' promotions....

FTC waives $2 million fine for bankrupt debt collection agency.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC presented a proposed settlement with Performance Capital Management, Inc. (PCM) -- that would waive a $2 million fine and halt future "serious violations" of the Fair Credit Reporting Act's (FCRA) Section 623 -- to the U.S. Bankruptcy...

Sub-prime lender stumbles over potpourri of lending laws.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... Action Loan Company, Inc. and its owner and president, Gus Goldsmith will cough up a $350,000 civil penalty and another $37,000 for consumer redress to settle FTC allegations that they violated the Truth In Lending Act (TILA) and its...

FTC & friends surf for credit repair scams.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC, Justice Dept. and 47 other federal, state and local law enforcement and consumer protection agencies surfed the Web looking for illegal credit repair scams that promise consumers that they can restore their creditworthiness for a fee....

FTC adds ex-Dodger to case.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... The FTC has charged more defendants -- including former baseball professional Steve Garvey -- in Federal Court with deceptively marketing the "Informa System" weight loss products. The action follows a settlement earlier this year where Enforma...

FTC handicaps "disabled" telemarketers.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... A gaggle of telemarketers who allegedly sold products at inflated prices by pretending to be staffed by handicapped persons or benefiting disadvantaged people Eave agreed not to misrepresent their association with handicapped people and...

Car wash franchisers' marketing doesn't wash with feds.(Brief Article)
September 11, 2000... At the request of the FTC, a federal district court has issued a temporary restraining order against, and frozen the assets of, two companies alleged to have made false earnings claims for mobile car washing franchises throughout the U.S. The...

Calendar.
September 11, 2000... September 13 - FTC Commissioner Mozelle W. Thompson will speak today at an American Crop Protection Association workshop: E-Commerce Opportunities and Pitfalls for the Crop Protection and Specialty Pesticides Industry; 8:45 - 9:15 am; Wyndham...

FTC widens Rx drug investigation.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The FTC's Competition Bureau has expanded its investigation of relationships between and among branded prescription drug manufacturers and their generic equivalents, FTC:WATCH has learned. Among the firms under investigation are: Barr...

Bond earmarks extra $900,000 for FTC to tackle slotting abuses.(Senator Christopher S. Bond)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... "The practice remains shrouded in secrecy worthy of a blockbuster whodunnit," Sen. Christopher S. Bond Senate Small Business Committee Chairman Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) has added 900,000 to the FTC's portion of the Commerce, Justice,...

FTC's baby food merger challenge in trouble.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson has told FTC lawyers challenging H.J. Heinz & Co.'s proposed $185 million acquisition of Beech-Nut Nutrition Corp. that he had problems with their argument that the merger would eliminate competition...

Pitofsky and DeSanti on e-commerce B2Bs.(Robert Pitofsky and Susan DeSanti of the Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Business to Business (B2B) Internet joint ventures can avoid creating potential breeding grounds for horizontal collusion by providing price information only to separate B2B principals individually, FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky advised a group...

Reconciling antitrust enforcement with intellectual property rights.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Intellectual property should only be expropriated as an antitrust remedy in very limited circumstances, where market power arises from the interaction of network externalities and strong IP protection, Antitrust Division Computers and Finance...

Does IP law trump antitrust law?(intellectual property)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The question of whether intellectual property (IP) law trumps antitrust law has great currency of late, former FTC Competition Bureau Deputy Director Willard K. Tom told the ABA Antitrust at the Millennium forum on Sept.11. FTC Chairman...

Pitofsky on EC-U.S. merger review convergence.(Robert Pitofsky of the Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... There has been substantial convergence in the method and content of merger enforcement in the European Commission (EC) and U.S in the 10 years since the EC Merger Regulation first went into effect, FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky said at the...

Senate Judiciary Committee approves NOPEC.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The Senate Judiciary Committee marked up the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act of 2000 (S. 2778) last week, and observers say NOPEC is ready to go to the floor in the next fortnight [FTC:WATCH No. 550, Sept.11]. Despite concerns...

Pitofsky tells Senate entertainment antitrust exemption not needed.(Robert Pitofsky of the Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky testified at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sept. 20 that pending antitrust exemptions to allow the entertainment industry to collaborate to develop and enforce voluntary guidelines is unnecessary....

American Franchisee Assoc. takes swipe at FTC : GAO to study how well FTC protects small franchisees.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Three Republican senators, Susan Collins (Me.), Thad Cochran (Miss.) and Charles Grassley (Iowa) have asked the General Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate how well the FTC carries out its mission of protecting investors against franchise...

FTC tells House transparent credit scoring a good thing.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... "Increased use of credit scoring, particularly in mortgage lending decisions, has heightened consumers' concerns and their desire to obtain access to their scores," FTC Financial Practices Assistant Director Peggy Twohig testified before the...

FTC likes House identity theft bill.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The FTC supports the House version of the Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2000 (H.R. 4311), Consumer Protection Bureau Planning and Information Management Assistant Director Betsy Broder testified before the House Banking and Financial...

COPPACamp.com says COPPA compliance not that hard.(Children's Online Privacy Protection Act)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Since COPPA (the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) came into effect in April, website operators have been scrambling to find affordable and workable compliance models, and a recent FTC surf suggested low COPPA compliance levels. ...

Merger watch.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Merger watch: The FTC under the leadership of Chairman Robert Pitofsky will likely be remembered as much for its edgy merger enforcement policy as for any of its other accomplishments, including challenges to cigarette marketing, the Intel...

The ABA Antitrust Section.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The ABA Antitrust Section has advised Congress not to enact any of the pending legislative bills that would amend the antitrust laws to protect family farmers from perceived abuses by large agribusiness players (report available at...

The House Judiciary Committee.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The House Judiciary Committee held a Legislative hearing on the "Antitrust Enforcement Improvement Act" (H.R. 4321), introduced by Rep. David Minge (D-Minn.) on Sept.12. American Antitrust Institute President Albert Foer testified that the AAI...

Don't rush.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Don't rush proposed changes to Canada's Competition Act to allow Canada to enter into a comprehensive antitrust agreement with the U.S. under the 1994 International Antitrust Enforcement Assistance Act (IAEAA) the ABA International Committee...

Let's hear it.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Let's hear it: Former FTC Competition Bureau Deputy Director Willard K. Tom on the 1975 Xerox consent decree after describing the case as being about breaking open a monopoly with fluffy accusations: "25 years is a long time. I felt like an...

Justice Dept. wrecks options exchanges' alleged exclusivity agreements.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Charging that four major U.S. stock option exchanges conspired to guarantee each other exclusive rights to list publicly-traded stock options, the Antitrust Division has persuaded the alleged miscreants to forego such adventures. The Final...

Water treatment parts bid-rigging charged.
September 25, 2000... The Justice Dept. has charged The Wickliffe Services Company Inc. and Jerry R. Wickliffe with participating in a criminal conspiracy to rig bids on the sales of equipment such as valves and flow tubes used at various water and wastewaster...

DOJ alleges an innovation market : Like vine-ripened tomatoes in January? Look to the Mediterranean, not the U.S.(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The Antitrust Division has filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona to block enforcement of a perpetual non-compete contract that bars an Israeli firm from selling improved tomato seeds in the U.S. The...

Wells Fargo, First Security Corp. to sell 37 branches in four states.(Wells Fargo and Co.)(First Security Corp. (Salt Lake City, Utah))(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The Antitrust Division and the attorneys general of New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho have persuaded Wells Fargo and First Security Corp to sell 37 branch offices with approximately $1.4 billion in deposits in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and...

Klein's parting thoughts on competition law's new world order.(Joel I. Klein)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... "Today merging companies have to take account of merger laws in more than sixty jurisdictions," Assistant Attorney General Joel I. Klein told an audience celebrating the EC Merger Control 10th Anniversary Conference in Brussels on September 14....

Alaska physician network settles FTC price-fixing charges; Swindle & Leary question structural remedy in cease and desist order.(Federal Trade commission)(Orson Swindle)(Thomas B. Leary)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Alaska Healthcare Network (AHN) agreed to avoid illegal concerted actions while engaging in legitimate joint conduct to settle FTC charges that AHN agreed to fix prices and hampered new health plans from entering into Fairbanks, Alaska. ...

Swindle & Leary call for review of regs for HIV test exporting.(Orson Swindle)(Thomas Leary)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The FTC says it has nabbed a third distributor of unreliable HIV tests that were plugged on the net as being the "most accurate technology available." Citing concern for containing AIDS on a global level, Commissioner Orson Swindle urged...

Unhealthy medical billing telemarketers.
September 25, 2000... Four individuals and four companies will post $150,000 bonds before marketing any more medical billing employment opportunities to settle FTC charges that they telemarketed bogus job ops. The defendants, collectively MediWorks, promised...

Funeral home in criminal contempt for violating 1992 FTC Order.(Federal Trade Commission)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Illinois funeral home owner Edward Olenec faces up to six months jail time or probation after pleading guilty to violating a 1992 FTC order. And Elliston Funeral Home could get slapped with a $250,000 fine following a Sept. 19 contempt hearing...

Unified applies for FTC OK of supermarket divestitures.(SavMax Store No. 310 to Vons and SavMax Store No. 312 to PCF CAPTEC Solano Mall)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... Unified Western Grocers, Inc., formerly Certified Grocers of California, has applied for FTC approval to sell SavMax Store No. 310, located at 29530 Rancho California Road, Temecula, Cal., and SavMax Store No. 312, located at 430 McKinley...

FTC appoints Alaska and Cushing assets maintenance trustee.(Peter Denn of Deloitte and Touche)(Brief Article)
September 25, 2000... The Commission has appointed Peter Denn as the Alaska Asset Maintenance Trustee and Cushing Asset Maintenance Trustee in BP Amoco p.l.c., et al. And, the trust agreements between Peter Denn and BP Amoco are approved and the trustee shall have...