Wednesday Morning Roundup
Credit Card Lawsuits. Bloomberg reports that MasterCard Inc. and other credit card companies will pay $336 million to settle consumer antitrust lawsuits. The lawsuits involved the fees MasterCard et. al. charged on foreign transactions.
MasterCard said it will pay $72.5 million to settle a federal lawsuit and a related California case over the fees, the Purchase, New York-based company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Visa International Inc. was also a defendant in the lawsuits.
Telecom mergers. The Tunney-Act review of the telecom mergers of SBC & AT&T and Verizon & MCI is delayed while the judge requests further materials. The Chigago Tribune reports:
“The court is firmly of the opinion that it is premature to hold evidentiary hearings,” [USDJ Emment] Sullivan said. Instead, Sullivan will let the government and the phone companies file additional documents with the court to justify whether the Justice Department’s antitrust division approval of the mergers was in the public interest.
EU. Meanwhile, in Europe:
EU regulators said Wednesday they had closed an antitrust probe into plans by China International Marine Containers to take over Dutch company Burg Industries BV after the two firms called off a deal that the EU said would create a quasi-monopoly. CIMC said last week that it and Burg had abandoned the tie-up after the EU filed formal charges, saying it believed the deal would cause significant antitrust problems. A tie-up would have brought together the world’s two largest producers of tank containers for liquid cargoes. Both companies make and sell standard tanks used to transport liquids _ such as hazardous chemicals _ in container ships where they can easily be piled next to standard freight container boxes.
Chron.com has the full story. The Commission’s press release is here.
Speaking of Europe, in case you’ve missed it: Last month, the Commission published its 2005 Annual Report on Competition Policy. Here is a taste form the press release:
In the field of EC Treaty rules on restrictive business practices and abuse of dominance, policy developments in 2005 include publication of a Green Paper on damages actions for breach of these rules (see IP/05/1634 and MEMO/05/489), as well as a Discussion Paper on exclusionary abuses of dominance (see IP/05/1626), which is part of a drive to develop antitrust policy on a sound economic footing. Major sector inquiries were launched in key sectors of the economy - gas and electricity (see IP/05/716 and MEMO/05/203) and financial services (see IP/05/719 and MEMO/05/204)– in order to identify current barriers to competition and evaluate possible solutions. The crackdown on cartels continued, with five cartel decisions adopted, imposing fines totalling some €680 million (see MEMO/05/493). With respect to abuse of dominance, in 2005 the Commission notably adopted a decision fining the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca for misusing the regulatory system in order to delay market entry of generic drugs (see IP/05/737). Concerning the EC rules on merger control, a major study on merger remedies was published in 2005, assessing the remedies which have been accepted by the Commission in past cases. The number of mergers and acquisitions notified to the Commission under the EU Merger Regulation rose again - to 313. The Commission adopted five decisions following in-depth investigations, resulting in two unconditional clearances and three clearance decisions which required commitments from the merging parties (Siemens/VA Tech (see IP/05/919), Johnson & Johnson/Guidant (see IP/05/1065), E.ON/MOL (see IP/05/1658)).
Technorati Tags: antitrust, Mastercard, SBC, AT&T, Verizon, MCI, CIMC, Burg Industries, EU Commission, competition policy
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